6th November 2018

VMworld increasing productivity by providing a superior employee experience

My first session at VMworld proper! And it’s a subject I don’t normally cover. I’m focused mainly on infrastructure, as those reading would know, however I had a good reason to attend this session… Let’s see if you can spot it.

The scale and scope of end user services have grown as well as the productivity of the individual. Even as little as fifteen years ago the capabilities of the desktop was limited, the scope of those services being down had limited impact. Now an end users entire working world exists on not only the desktop or laptop but also on mobile devices. Those environments being unavailable has a huge impact both financially and from an employer/employee perception and relationship.

Availability of devices has been driving hiring decisions. Some talent coming into organisations are being influenced by the technology choices available to them in the EUC environment. The response to this is to extend the supported range of devices. Offering a singular platform isn’t really valid, being able to support VDI, laptop, desktop, mobile or tablet devices is requires. Flexibility of device is key

BYOD makes up part of the offerings that need to be supported. The Impact of BYOD operationally is a challenge with regulatory challenges being chief amongst them

Age differences and the platform they expect. Age isn’t really the driver it’s the exposure to technology and how that may have been consumed. Team productivity choices have been a driver, how does the team work and how do I integrate with that.

Flexibility is very much a bidirectional challenge, it isn’t a one way journey that focuses on the new. Support for the traditional 9 to 5 worker needs to be maintained.

The rate of change in the EUC world is another huge challenge for assuring the end user experience. Some collaboration tools help to provide channels of communications and awareness. Change is a constant now, transformation does not happen in waves it is a continuous process.

The element of control is still a KPI, however as we are seeing in other areas the business process is king. Supporting that business process as a local install, a service or a SaaS platform is now a KPI of equal import.

For user experience, at the advent of mobile devices they where used as a mobile information store. For email, planner and contacts. The application architecture evolved to move the processing power centrally. As mobile devices have become more powerful, this process has changed, with more processing and functionality moved back to the handheld device.

This session was hosted by Jason Conyard, with a panel of Dirk Eckert, Hendrik Harder and Richard Leong.

to the panel

Simon