Yassine Zaied, Chief Strategy Officer at Nexthink.
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We’ve heard about it, we’ve read about it, and we’ve experienced it—the massive shift in how the pandemic’s forced remote work in 2020 has influenced how, where and why we work. We know it brought on rapid digital transformation to accommodate new hybrid policies and changed work culture at many companies. But what were the biggest IT disruptors, and how will they shape the next 10 to 20 years of work?
Starting With Automation And AI
AI and automation have been around for a while, and their uses have evolved over time, and as a result of the lockdowns during early 2020, businesses needed to rapidly shift to accommodate new ways to reach people while they were at home. Now, AI and automation are part of almost every piece of technology we interact with today—from watching Netflix to grocery shopping to virtual doctor’s appointments. What was once nice to have become imperative to keeping up with business, and now as we face a looming recession, has set organizations up to deal with the ups and downs that come with it. In fact, according to IDC, spending on AI systems will reach more than $204 billion in 2025—a substantial increase from the $85.3 billion it reached in 2021.
The biggest area of opportunity for AI and automation, particularly when it comes to the digital workplace, is the ability to create more visibility through consistent monitoring. With an increase in both visibility and automation, organizations can be more proactive in their IT support, often catching disruptions before even the employee notices. It supports both improved productivity and cost-savings while providing a positive experience for the employee.
Cloud As An Enabler For Remote work
In 2017 Forbes published an article titled “Why The Cloud Is The Biggest Disruptor In Every Business Today.” And while that was true in 2017, the pandemic gave it a significant boost and once again made it the MVP of technology when the world of work went remote. Cloud largely enabled businesses to work remotely, which has since altered the working world entirely and sparked a million debates on forced in-office work versus remote versus hybrid. But over the past two years, the biggest challenge with moving everything to the cloud has been visibility. With all business-critical applications on the cloud, digital workplace teams were tasked with figuring out how to create visibility throughout all operations. In one study, researchers found that within their pool of respondents, an organization with 1000 employees has 288 applications on average. This creates thousands of opportunities for IT issues that can impact employee satisfaction and productivity—and we can expect that number to continue to grow.
An Increase Of Applications And Software Licenses
In the past two years, many employees have traded their conference rooms and open office floor plans for home offices and a myriad of different SaaS applications. “Whiteboard brainstorming,” for the most part, that took place in a conference room, quickly became Zoom, Miro, or Stormboard. While this helped to enable remote work capabilities, it also opened the door for new security and experience challenges. Organizations provide a finite number of SaaS solutions for employees to help maintain licensing from getting out of hand, but what happens when those solutions don’t meet the needs of every employee?
To create the best workflow possible, many employees will resort to downloading their own applications in order to get their jobs done in the most efficient manner possible. Not only does this mean IT can’t help them when something goes wrong with the application, but it also opens the door to more cyber risks. In general, around two-thirds of organizations are challenged by ensuring a smooth employee experience and adequate cyber security within a remote working environment. However, just blocking outside applications often leads to delivering a terrible experience for employees. So, to prevent complications from Shadow IT without sacrificing experience, organizations need better visibility into what applications employees are and, more importantly, are not using. From there, they can provide the right solutions to employees in a way that complies with security regulations.
The “Great Resignation” Heard’ Round The World
As people left their offices behind in 2020 to begin working from home, a whole world of possibilities opened up for them as well. Employees had options, which made them take a hard look at the organizations they were working for and determine what their priorities were. For many, especially those who planned to work remotely full-time, technology became one of their most important priorities. In a survey from Nexthink, HR and IT leaders pointed to poor tech service as an influential factor when it came to employee turnover or burnout.
The pandemic changed the way we think about work and how we use technology to work. Today’s organizations have to put more of an emphasis on the technology they offer employees—making sure it’s efficient, encourages proactivity and meets the needs of each individual.
The last two years have had a significant impact on the digital workplace industry, and while automation, cloud, applications and the Great Resignation have all played a part, it doesn’t stop there. We are facing new global challenges, from the supply chain shortage to the recession, that will create a new wave of innovation and disrupting technologies. It is up to organizations to not rely on what has worked in the past and continue to push forward toward the future.
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