THE NEW WAY OF WORKING

THE DIGITAL WORKPLACE IS GOING TO BE A KEY ELEMENT OF THE FUTURE OF WORK. IS YOUR BUSINESS READY TO LEVERAGE THE ADVANCES IN TECHNOLOGY TO TRANSFORM YOUR WORKFORCE?

The rise of working from home is forcing many organisations to rethink how their employees work and create digital workplaces. However, the path to a digital workplace is riddled with complexity as it takes more than providing digital tools and cloud-based applications to your employees.

So, how can organisations create a successful digital workplace experience for their employees? Before getting started on the journey to workforce transformation, it is important for CIOs to understand the difference between digital workspace and digital workplace.

Gartner defines the digital workplace as a business strategy to boost employee agility and engagement through a more consumerised work environment, built on top of innovations in technologies such as automation, collaboration, and artificial intelligence.

Haidi Nossair, Sr. Director – Client Solutions Group, MERAT, Dell Technologies, says the digital workplace is a work environment that seamlessly connects data and people regardless of location. “It’s where work is not considered a place to go to, but a set of responsibilities and tasks to drive outcomes without geographical boundaries. Through the support of a robust IT ecosystem, a digital workplace is where the remote workforce collaborates within dynamic teams around the free-flowing exchange of ideas and secure sharing of documents and data.”

According to Vijay Jaswal, CTO of Software AG Middle East and Turkey, digital workplace can be simply defined as a virtual version of the ‘physical office’ or a digital twin of the physical office – a space such as home, café, etc. that provides the ability to function in exactly same manner as a brick-andmortar workplace.

“It should mirror the physical workplace, in allowing activities such as virtually collaborating with

co-workers, attending meetings and conferences seamlessly without internet or surrounding interruptions, accessing data and information using the company’s IT applications, as well as information from external sources such as partners, suppliers and vendors,” he says. Stephen Gill, Academic Head of the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University Dubai, offers a different perspective: “The digital workplace represents the radical and rapid transformation in the way work gets done. Any business or entity that is adopting technology as a means of improving individual and team productivity, enabling new ways of working and collaboration, and enhancing the overall employee experience, owns a digital workplace.”

The digital workplace trends

It is almost certain that the workplace will remain largely virtual in 2021 and slowly evolve into a hybrid model with a distributed and geographically dispersed workforce.

Given the many proven advantages of a digital workplace, such as increased employee productivity, enhanced communication, and reduced operational costs, more and more organisations are devoting their IT budget to support digital workplace strategies that aim to produce measurable returns.

Gill from Heriot-Watt says organisations will look towards enhancing employee productivity further by enabling better remote work experiences, be it in the form of home set-up upgrades or software investments, such as AI/ML or process automation.

Though Covid-19 has pushed many businesses towards the digital workplace, the workplace concept was changing even before the pandemic hit with a growing demand for flexible working practices and for employees to be able to access their work files and email from outside of the office.

“The pandemic accelerated these trends and made distributed working essential. As countries make progress with their vaccination programmes, and as the pandemic abates, it’s clear that working practices may never return to their former ‘normal’. In fact, recent research from VMware and Vanson Bourne found that across EMEA, there has been a 41% increase in employees who now recognise remote working as a pre-requisite rather than a perk,” says Ihab Farhoud, Director, Solutions Engineering – METNA, VMware Middle East, Turkey and North Africa.

Nossair from Dell Technologies agrees that the remote workplace is here to stay. The last year has shown many companies that the physical working space is not essential, and with the right technologies, remote working can be successful too.

“As a large number of companies have shifted to the digital workplace over the last year, we can also expect to see further innovations in peripherals such as monitors which will enhance both productivity as well as user experience, especially as companies continue to operate remotely and virtual meetings and video conferencing stay central to day-to-day activities.

“Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud are already rapidly changing how we work – from needing to deploy, secure, manage and support devices from the cloud to automating redundant processes and tasks that will free up employees to be more innovative – businesses need to seamlessly adapt to a new world of work that’s constantly evolving,” she comments.

Building blocks

Though there are no hard and fast rules for building a thriving digital workplace culture, CIOs will have to follow some best practices and adapt to the changes required.

GIVEN THE MANY PROVEN ADVANTAGES OF A DIGITAL WORKPLACE, SUCH AS INCREASED EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY, ENHANCED COMMUNICATION, AND REDUCED OPERATIONAL COSTS, MORE AND MORE ORGANISATIONS ARE DEVOTING THEIR IT BUDGET TO SUPPORT DIGITAL WORKPLACE STRATEGIES THAT AIM TO PRODUCE MEASURABLE RETURNS.

Chris Pope

Haidi Nossair

Ihab Farhoud

Stephen Gill

Chris Pope, VP Innovation, ServiceNow, says connecting employees and knowledge workers is crucial for the coordination of work across the enterprise and workplace. Utilising digital platforms which are connected and seamlessly integrated ensures that employees can focus on what matters, to deliver great service to customers, without technology barriers being a hindrance.

“The ability to network and connect effortlessly across departments and traditional organisation boundaries ensures that work is far more effective and timely, without technical limitations being a poor excuse for not providing great service levels. We must not underestimate that we all still and must communicate with our fellow employees, but also ensure we are open, collaborative and sharing,” he says.

Jaswal from Software AG says employee experience should be at the heart of any digital workplace strategy. “From workspace setup, the location, the internet connection and devices that employees use through the day – the workspace not only needs to provide a level of flexibility but also the basic requirements to keep up with the demands of the employees and their respective departments. This includes everything from computers, mobile devices and productivity and collaboration applications, chatbots, virtual assistant technology, personal analytics, and immersive workspaces. Having said that, corporates today are in fact even sending coffee brewing machines to digital work locations which also encourages coffee team meetings with the freshly brewed coffee – another area that simulates a physical workspace,” he says.

Farhoud from VMware adds that the critical requirements for the digital workplace are ease of use, reliability, and security. Whether employees are at home, in the office or anywhere else, they want to be able to access their work files and data seamlessly on any device.

“Today’s workforce all too often faces key challenges like fragmented security, operational complexity and subpar experiences. These issues require rethinking how organisations enable seamless workspaces without limitation. It’s important to put employees first with a pre-integrated solution that delivers secure and seamless experiences while reducing costs and operational overhead,” he says.

Common obstacles

While businesses can reap many benefits from the digital workplace in terms of productivity and employee satisfaction, there are some unique challenges that IT leaders need to address before embracing it. One of the most common challenges in shifting to a digital workplace for early adopters has been the cybersecurity risks. The Dell Technologies Global Data Protection Index 2020 Snapshot found that 80% of regional organisations have suffered a disruptive event in the last 12 months – up from 77 percent in 2018.

“Basically, amid COVID-19 there has been a 148% spike in ransomware attacks on global organisations. Employees have admitted to being lax when it comes to following safe data practices when working from home and hence, this requires built-in security on the hardware as well as intelligent solutions to prevent, detect and remediate attacks, encrypt sensitive information and protect data,” says Nossair.

Farhoud says organisations can overcome the common barriers to a digital workspace by placing more emphasis on ensuring they have the digital flexibility to adapt to fastchanging scenarios. “Technology is changing the world faster than ever before, and the best way for organisations to gain the flexibility they need is to embrace cloud-ready solutions, and to ensure they have the right policies, culture and mindset across their organisation to be adaptable and open to tapping new opportunities in this new unpredictable world,” he concludes.

THE IMPORTANCE OF VISIBILITY

ELIE DIB, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, EMEA AT RIVERBED TECHNOLOGY, WRITES VISIBILITY IS KEY FOR ACTIONABLE INSIGHT IN THE ‘INFRASTRUCTURE EVERYWHERE’ ENTERPRISE.

With several countries in the Middle East having successfully reopened their economies, it’s safe to say that the seismic shift in workforce trends that was predicted to extend beyond the peak of the pandemic is indeed here to stay. Given that businesses across a range of sizes, verticals, and geographies have embraced hybrid work models, its unsurprising that recent research from Riverbed found that organisations expect a 50% increase in employees working remotely post-COVID-19. Consequently, CIOs must now look to develop a more long-term mindset and establish a consistent infrastructure that can support employees working everywhere and anywhere.

The key to this ‘infrastructure everywhere’ setup is gaining strong visibility over the network and optimising performance of applications that businesses have come to rely on over the last 12 months – regardless of the location employees are working from.

Getting ‘Infrastructure Everywhere’ Right

One of the primary IT needs through the pandemic has been to ensure seamless collaboration between employees and customers. This translated to the adoption of SaaS applications and collaboration tools such as Slack, Zoom and Office 365 at a pace never previously imagined. In fact, in Zoom’s latest quarterly results, the company reported its total global revenue for the quarter to be up 369% year-over-year as it remained a critical communication and collaboration service during the pandemic.

However, the adoption of these new technologies has not been without its challenges for CIOs and their IT teams. Not only did these teams have to manage the influx of new applications and personal devices onto the network, they had to do so with minimal visibility over what was happening, where it was happening and when. As a result, businesses have been left vulnerable to security threats and inefficiencies in the network. If left unaddressed, these threats could now hinder efficiency of application performance, damage employee productivity and ultimately have detrimental financial impact on the wider business.

The businesses that ignore these issues and fail to establish an infrastructure everywhere setup will be the ones leaving themselves ill-equipped to deal with the employee demands of working anywhere. As we continue to progress through 2021, it’s time for CIOs and their teams to embrace infrastructure everywhere and ensure they have the best technology solutions to support this.

Focus on Visibility to Drive Performance

While employees become accustomed to being able to work from anywhere – whether it be in a café, at the office, at home or while they’re waiting for the car to be fixed – it is vital that CIOs and their IT teams have the right visibility and performance solutions in place. It is simply not an option for there to be SaaS applications and collaboration tools that are slow, inefficient or temperamental as this could lead to considerable impact on employee productivity and business growth. CIOs and the IT teams need to adopt solutions that give a holistic overview of the network if they are to succeed in developing an infrastructure that supports working from everywhere.

To achieve this, businesses must invest in network performance management (NPM) solutions that collect and analyse data flowing through every application from each device in use. Armed with these insights, IT teams can quickly identify what problems are occurring and take the necessary steps to resolve them, regardless of where employees are working from. For example, application acceleration tools can be installed to manage both bandwidth and latency fuelled network problems caused by bandwidth-hungry applications such as video conferencing. In using complementary application acceleration and network performance management solutions, IT teams are able to optimise the performance of the network, prevent any negative impact from slow-running systems and enable employees to effectively and productively work from anywhere.

Ongoing Optimisation

It is clear that 2021 must be the year of establishing infrastructure everywhere – underpinned by the correct network visibility and application performance tools that will help enhance employee experience. By adopting the right solutions, businesses can operate with the assurance that employees can remain productive and continue to drive innovation for the wider business, irrespective of whatever location they are working from, this year and beyond.