Businesses have been on a rollercoaster ride for the past three years or so, especially when it comes to their IT infrastructures. The sheer scale of evolution we have witnessed over this short span of time, is the “innovation equivalent” of almost a whole decade.
IT and digital transformation initiatives, which businesses had planned to execute over a period of six to ten years, had to be undertaken within a matter of weeks and months. The Covid-19 pandemic acted as a major catalyst for fast track digitalization of businesses.
In this post, we will outline the three most vibrant trends, which will be re-shaping business operations for the foreseeable future.
The Digital Workplace
Physical boundaries of the workplace have blurred to un-imaginable proportions. Entire floors of business operations, buzzing with employees and activity, are lying vacant even to this day. The physical workplace has been taken over, or replaced by the digital workplace.
The digital workplace revolves around delivering all the enterprise data, resources, applications and workloads to the employees, wherever they may be. Some of the most probable locations include their homes, the workplace, or even a random coffee shop.
In order to attract and retain the top human capital, organizations will have to up their “digital workplace game”, by investing in agile and flexible digital technologies, like Cloud Computing, Cloud Hosted Virtual Desktops, and similar flexible solutions.
Digital Employee Experience (DEX)
This concept is more or less an extension of the Digital Workplace imperative we have outlined above. The most vital purpose of any effective Digital Workplace is to deliver an exceptional Digital Employee Experience (DEX).
What’s important to note is that the DEX is no more confined to the physical boundaries of the workplace. In fact, its quite the opposite, as organizations will have to provide all the requisite capabilities to employees, wherever they are, via digital channels / mediums.
Present day productivity tools for the modern workforce need to be independent of the employee’s physical location, device platform, operating system (OS) compatibility limitations, and cyber security concerns.
In the near future, rather right now, providing a superior Digital Employee Experience (DEX) is becoming critical for businesses to attract and retain top talent. To achieve this end, businesses will have to invest wisely in the right digital technologies.
Contextually Aware Cyber Security
We have come a long way from the perimeter security approach that used to exist before the mainstreaming of Zero Trust Network architectures. Given the present day cyber security threats however, zero trust environments also need an “upgrade”.
This upgrade is likely to come in the form of Zero Touch Security, which revolves around two key attributes. Firstly, the endpoint device security will be setup, managed and regulated by specialized IT and security admins, rather than employees themselves.
Secondly, Zero Touch Security revolves around minimizing the manual “touchpoints” between data, processes and employees. This will be made possible by leveraging Automation across the organizational processes that are repetitive.
This approach will minimize, if not eliminate, the possibilities of cyber security vulnerabilities that mostly arise due to human and decisional fatigue, an inescapable reality of human nature, especially when it comes to identical as well as repetitive tasks.
Organizations that are prepared to invest in the right technologies that enable a digitally connected workplace, deliver a superior employee experience and pave the way for contextually aware security measures, are likely to thrive in the times to come.
