In his message about COVID-19, VMware’s CEO Pat Gelsinger, zoomed in on the question on top of everyone’s minds, besides business continuity: How can businesses achieve innovation and growth with a workforce that is now largely remote?
He said, “In this new paradigm, organisations must harness technology to ensure business continuity and this means building a digital foundation that enables the architecting and delivery of digital products and services to employees and customers.”
On this basis, there are four areas VMware recognises, where technology can play a role to drive forward a new norm of working. These areas are:
- Delivery of digital workspaces on organisational or personal endpoints to access critical applications without compromising security
- Protection of all endpoints that are accessing organisational assets remotely
- Accelerate performance of organisational applications on remote connections
- Provide elastic capacity to scale new users instantly and on-demand
Digital Workspace
Remote working isn’t a new idea, and has been in practice way before the current pandemic came around.
Evolving employee habits have changed so much since people started remote working, that the concepts emerged from these evolving habits – mobile device management (MDM), enterprise mobility management (EMM), client management tools and more – came and went in almost the blink of the eye.
This had required a rethink of digital workspace solutions that on one hand provides freedom of choice to employees, and on another doesn’t compromise security.
During their annual end-user conference, VMworld 2019, Shanker Iyer had said, “Addressing employee experience holistically – from hire through retire – must be at the heart of every company’s digital workspace design and is paramount to workforce transformation success.
The senior vice president and general manager, End User Computing, VMware, added, “With Workspace ONE, IT can more confidently empower employees to be productive by providing access to the resources they need while simultaneously advancing the organisation’s modern management and zero trust security initiatives.”
What employee experience does this region want?
During this time of the COVID-19 virus pandemic, never has the need for remote work capability been more welcome. In fact, it has become essential.
But, are these organisations equipping their employees with the capability to work from their homes and indirectly maintain business continuity?
A joint VMware and Vanson Bourne survey (VMware Digital Employee Experience) revealed over three quarters of its respondents comprising employees, HR and IT, opining that their ability to work remotely has the most room for improvement.
The APAC segment of the survey which spanned 1,600 respondents from countries like Australia, Japan, India, Singapore and China, also reflected the huge gaps in remote working ability.
There is a wide chasm between IT organisations’ views that they provide digital tools for employees to be successful in their jobs, and what employees actually think about this.
The survey goes on to say IT and HR need to collaborate to realise a real digital employee experience for the workforce. And yes, productive remote working is part of that experience.
For example, 80-percent of APAC employees indicated they would like to see improved mobile device access, to applications for three most important work tasks.
To enable this for them, requires HR and IT to be on the same page about among other things, organisational assets to be protected, levels of access granted to which different employee segments, and even the impact of apps upon productivity.
To this end, VMware innovations like VMware Workspace ONE provide continuous connectivity to the remote workforce while securing all critical control points of the modern enterprise, so organisations can continue to move forward confidently in this new digital working reality
Two main requirements
So, the new global VMware Digital Employee Experience study was revealing, in that when it comes to workplace habits and the increasing demand for freedom, flexibility, collaboration, the only constant is change.
IT now has to address tech heterogeneity in the workplace to fulfil user demand to use any app, from any cloud or environment, no matter from what location, or what their device may be.
And in all of this, two significant organisational requirements prevail; management that is modern by keeping up with the times, and security that keeps up with this modern management.
Another way to think of VMware Workspace ONE, is that it is a platform that delivers and manages any app on any device by integrating access control, application management, and multi-platform endpoint management.
All of this happens on a common identity framework, and this platform is reported to be made up of two main component solutions that customers are already using – Workspace ONE UEM or Unified Endpoint Management, and VMware Horizon, a virtual application delivery solution.
It is the best of two worlds, integrated.
New capabilities
For example, one very powerful new feature is the ability to simplify and streamline how virtual desktops and applications are managed, secured and accessed in Workspace ONE – across on-premises, in the cloud, or a combination of both.
On top of that, is the new VMware Horizon Services for Multi-Cloud which enable IT administrators to automate brokering and management across multi-site environments, which lead to improved user performance, reduced costs and support for more use cases like disaster recovery.
As part of Horizon Services for Multi-Cloud, new management services will simplify desktop and app administration as IT will now be able to manage key assets such as applications or images across multiple sites.
This is a modern approach to application management, and modern management is essential to today’s digital workspaces as organisations transition from traditional management approaches, older operating systems and legacy applications.
VMware states, “VMware is committed to helping organisations close the digital experience gap by taking modern management to the next level and deliver the flexibility and seamless experiences that employees are increasingly seeking at work.”
VMware Workspace One empowers remote workforces with a digital workspace experience that delivers access to any app on any device without compromising security. At this time of uncertainty and to better support businesses caught off guard and wanting to move to mobility, some available tools, technologies and resources that VMware offers, are as follows:
VMware is offering free trials of Workspace ONE for an extended period through July 31, 2020. Find out more here. A special webinar featuring EUC CTO, Shawn Bass, and Brian Madden: “How to Quickly Set Up a Remote Workforce for Success” An ongoing blog series addressing pertinent topics for accelerating remote work initiatives at blogs.vmware.com/euc
