Why “Good Enough” Isn’t Actually Good Enough

Despite the clear benefits of mobility, many organizations struggle to move beyond the most basic level of offering individual productivity apps. According to VMware, only one in five organizations has successfully transitioned a core business process to a mobile model. 

That failure to fully integrate mobility into the enterprise is a missed opportunity, to be sure, but it is perhaps understandable given the various challenges that IT departments face in this arena. Not surprisingly, the security and control of devices tops the list of factors preventing companies from undertaking mobility initiatives, with nearly half (46 percent) of organizations citing this as a top challenge, according to VMware. Other significant hurdles include the cost and complexity of management, data backup and recovery, supporting multiple devices and the need to maintain application compatibility. 

Given those challenges, it’s not difficult to imagine an IT manager looking at an organization’s existing systems and processes and essentially saying, “Good enough.” 

The problem with that line of thinking is that, as the workforce evolves to include more and more digital natives — and as those younger workers bring with them a lifetime of experience with consumer mobile IT — failing to invest in mobility tools won’t be “good enough” at all. Not only will organizations miss out on the productivity benefits that come with having a mobile workforce, but they may also miss out on top talent.

Digital Workspaces Take Mobility to the Next Level

In response to the growing demand for mobile solutions, vendors have developed fully mobile platforms that simplify traditional mobility challenges and provide a seamless end-user experience. Collectively, those end-to-end mobility solutions are known as the digital workspace. 

The digital workspace strategy combines multiple technologies to deliver a balance between productivity, usability and security. Often, users are given some level of choice over both the devices they want to carry and the types of tools they want to use on those devices. Above all, the strategy aims to deliver the collaboration and communication tools that workers need to be more productive, providing access from any location and on any device. 

Employees at one organization may use tools such as Cisco Systems’ Spark, Jabber and WebEx, while workers at another might rely on Microsoft’s Skype for Business and SharePoint. More important than the tools themselves are the questions that should be answered before getting started: How easy are they for employees to use? How simple are they for IT staff to secure and manage? And what do they allow users to do that they couldn’t do before? 

A number of vendors have begun bundling several existing products to provide an integrated digital workspace experience. Those include VMware Workspace ONE, Citrix Workspace Suite and Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS). However, many organizations take an à la carte approach toward digital workspaces, picking and choosing solutions from multiple vendors based on their specific needs. Often, those enterprises work with a trusted partner to design a digital workspace solution that will both meet their mobility needs and ensure interoperability. 

Any digital workspace deployment will give users access to standard mobility tools including email, text messaging, file sharing, storage, collaboration, virtual meetings and voice communication. What sets the strategy apart is that workers also achieve mobile access to nearly all work applications, including those that have traditionally been delivered only to PCs. That is made possible through robust desktop and application virtualization, as well as identity and access management systems that give users single sign-on access to the apps they need. 

Through a combination of end-user productivity tools and IT management solutions, the digital workspace allows organizations to make “mobile first” more than just a slogan.