"Roamer, wanderer, nomad, vagabond, Call me what you will, But I’ll take my time anywhere, Free to speak my mind anywhere, And I’ll redefine anywhere" – so sang Metallica in their hit single, Wherever I May Roam. The same is now true of IT, with so many consumer devices crossing over into the business environment, offering us the opportunity to work flexibly from wherever we are in the world.
Although employees have come to expect that businesses will support the transition, the reality is that many IT departments are feeling overwhelmed at putting in place an infrastructure which supports a variety of devices in a secure and flexible manner. In fact, the lack of support from businesses was reflected in our Unisys Consumerisation of IT study. It found that 55 per cent of surveyed European employees said they use personal devices and applications because they need them to do their work and the company does not provide an alternative.
Thanks to virtual desktop tools, and specifically a ‘Workspace as a Service’ (WaaS) type approach, the consumerisation of IT trend does not need to prove a headache for IT managers, but offers an opportunity to overhaul legacy systems and support the new, digital era of the workplace.
In its simplest form, workspace as a service enables the IT team to provide the operating system, applications, documents and data employees normally use at their desks to any device in any location – all they need is an internet connection and the right security credentials. It also address one of the thorniest issues in the ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) debate – ‘the right to wipe’ data from an employee-owned device in the interests of enterprise security, keeping business applications and data entirely separate to personal items. The infrastructure also gives the IT department centralised control of employee access, with resources, applications, storage and security privileges able to be suspended at the click of a mouse.
More often than not, employees are now reviewing emails from their mobile phones, checking documents in the evening at home from their tablet or logging into the enterprise network from a laptop while travelling abroad on business. All require access to business applications but in order to provide secure and flexible access, the IT department must first understand the data being requested, its characteristics and how the data should be delivered. For example, the level of security authentication needed may differ significantly dependant on the device, geographical location of the request or data being requested by an individual. Rather than locking employees out in a ‘better safe than sorry’ approach, virtual desktops enable the workforce to work in a way that suits them best.
The role of WaaS in boosting employee satisfaction through enabling mobile working can also not be underestimated. Through ensuring employees can work using the device and from a location which suits their role and personal preferences, workers can be more engaged and productive, boosting performance and potential revenues in the process.
In the future, we’ll increasingly see that different roles, personalities and preferences all play a part in determining how productive we are when using different devices from a range of locations. Employee’s homes or their local coffee shop may provide an internet service which is just as reliable as that in the office, without putting additional support on your network. The same can be said of the cost of running the IT network.
It’s important to remember it’s not a case that one solution fits all, though, and it’s crucial that businesses still consider the different workers and working environments which their organisation must cater for. Not everyone needs VDI, but Workspace as a Service is an opportunity to enable the workforce to complete their work better and in a more efficient manner. It’s all about implementing a flexible system and maintaining control from the central IT team.
A centralised management solution is a chance to improve the services that IT deliver, by thinking mobile and desktop when planning changes. My view is that virtual desktops, including our own (Workspace-as-a-Service), allow the IT department to manage issues centrally and employees to work better and in a way which suits them – surely it’s a no brainer?
