In one of my previous articles, I discussed the workspace of tomorrow and how it will be an evolution, not a revolution. One thing that strikes me more than anything in this evolution is the requirement to be adaptive. I think Darwin’s principle of natural selection applies to technology, especially today. Those companies that are better adapted to their environment have a better chance of survival than those that remain stagnant and unwilling to change.
Being adaptive in this context is the ability to recognize that we need to change how we provision workspaces to keep workers productive in a technology-dominated atmosphere. Resistance to change and the status quo are the true enemies of evolution. This is especially true for the digitally transformed enterprise. Having worked in the end-user computing field for over 20 years now, what I find most fascinating is there are actual logistics now emerging and run-books being formed in terms of the steps the truly digitally inspired enterprise can take now to embrace the current state of the art in end-user computing. Since 1995 I have dedicated my professional life to helping agencies, organizations, and enterprises manage desktop platforms at scale, across the globe. After working with thousands and thousands of customers, and millions and millions of end-users — let me tell what I learned.
Understand what you have.
As I’ve also previously stated, you can’t measure what you don’t know you have. Therefore, the first thing to understand is what you have. “Have” as in not just infrastructure, but applications and what your employees are using those applications for. There really is no point in transforming a bunch of dormant apps, just because they’re on an inventory list of licenses harvested by a SAM (software assessment management) app. No, you must ensure that those applications are being utilized on a regular basis. The truly digitally transformed organization rationalizes the applications and resources users need, while at the same time ensuring elasticity if there is error or drift in those rationalizations. The good news is there is phenomenal instrumentation available that can help discern signals in the noise. I strongly advise organizations to utilize these toolsets to ensure you truly understand what you have first before embarking on any transformation. Assess your current state. Much like Google Maps, it's hard to get turn by turn directions (and arrival time) without knowing your starting point. Reach out to your local system integrator, reseller, or trusted advisor and let them know you want to assess your desktops — all of them. Ask: What do we have? What do we use? This is the basis for the next steps, not PowerPoint.
Rethink your environments.
Procurement no longer drives (nor should it) the end-user computing strategy in a digitally transformed organization. Replacing boxes is a losing strategy at a time when technology is a competitive advantage when properly leveraged. Therefore, we want to ensure the right users get access to the right apps, at the right time, with the right security, on the right platform, as and when needed. The design process may appear complex, however, with proper introspection into your organization and powerful software to categorize users, apps, machines, data, networks and storage — architecture and platform selection will be the fun part. Consider utilizing system integrators or regional VARs due to their expertise in these deployment models. One word of caution: The more stateless and ephemeral your “workspaces” can be, the better. We are seeing a rapid emergence of data, user profiles and applications as “services” versus being viewed as static components of a desktop. This alone is allowing those progressive enterprises willing to begin the digital transformation process in end-user computing to pull past their peers. One word of advice — use this opportunity of examining your environment (assessment) to begin to rationalize. What I mean is the old way of doing IT was to put everything inside the PC in case a user needed it — that's not the case anymore. Now we do things on demand. We don’t buy, patch, secure, update and pay for things we don’t use.
Monitor and maintain new additions.
To underpin the above processes, you must also ensure you continually monitor the new environments. These are no longer statically deployed objects that predictably depreciate over four years until the next PC refresh. These are living, elastic, capable systems that can assemble runtimes with applications with user state, with data to provide a truly adaptive workspace. However, with the orchestration of multiple services, having a truly end-to-end view of your environment is not only critical operationally for the organization but it also an actionable insight into your metrics that can ignite innovation. A proper assessment should detail the configuration of each and every PC you own. It should also detail how the user(s) individual, and as a whole, use the systems and resources you have invested in. Are you getting a good return? If you can measure something, you can manage it, and if you can measure it, it matters.
One word of caution that is actually age-old advice. Don’t get enchanted with the next hot new thing. We all do it. I do it. It’s human nature. The new, hot, cool, buzzing tech is typically what we gravitate towards. As a species things that might amplify our lives fascinate us. However, in end-user computing what might look good on PowerPoint, or coming from a salesperson, may not deliver what you expect. Why? The technology needs to match your needs. What problems are you trying to solve? The vendor is trying to sell more software, hardware and services. Good assessment data is your protection.
Overall, transformation is more "hardcore" than adaptive — adaptive is the ability to change to suit different conditions, whereas transformation is a marked change in nature, appearance or form. Combining adaptive into a strategy to deliver digital transformation will enable organizations to deliver the right workspace, for the right users, for the right reasons, at the right time.
