In every industry, from small businesses to the largest global enterprises, the way we work has dramatically changed. Work is no longer a place we go, it is what we do – whether from home, the office, customer sites, or the most remote parts of the planet. Helping workers to securely connect, collaborate, and work from anywhere is sound business sense.
Redesigning work for a new generation
As a generation of tech-savvy employees joins the workforce, expectations are changing. Accustomed to instant availability of their favourite apps on smartphones and wearable devices, staff feel frustrated when the workplace fails to keep pace. Creating an atmosphere of collaboration demands the availability of preferred applications, access to leading hardware, and a modern meeting environment. Workplace design has a key influence on staff morale and productivity.
Escaping on-premises restrictions
Most organisations have their collaboration applications hosted on-premises. However, this comes with a largely unknown technical debt. On-premises collaboration solutions consume expensive and quickly diminishing storage. Staff overtime to patch and manage the environment is costly, even before you factor in backup and forklift upgrades to prevent the risk of support gaps becoming an attack vector. On-premises collaboration solutions also mean missing out on functionality, without the frequent upgrades of cloud solutions.
Supporting collaboration
One of the biggest investments for most organisations is their people, so it makes sense to help them to work more productively. For many organisations, staff simply need the right devices, designed to take full advantage of tools already available. Digital-era employees are natural collaborators, so tools like Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, or Webex, can raise productivity when harnessed well. Where once a team member may have spent hours searching for a resource or creating their own, they can now avoid duplicated effort and work together towards a result.
Freedom of movement
If direct costs are substantial, this is nothing compared to the opportunity cost of lost productivity. Cloud-based collaboration tools allow for greater freedom of movement, so your people can work productively from everywhere. These solutions even protect the organisation in a disaster scenario, with staff working from home or remotely to continue business as usual.
