How Enterprises Can Enable The Digital Workspace Without Losing Control

Today, employees are using more business applications, services and data from more devices and from more locations than ever before. Workers want and expect the same easy access to business applications that they experience when using personal technology and social media. Mobile access also can greatly improve efficiencies. Think about managers that have tablets out in the field or on the factory floor.

To meet employee expectations, enterprises must deliver a more consumer-oriented work environment powered by technology that allows staffers to access the network and necessary materials whenever and wherever they want. How can organizations deliver this user experience without sacrificing security and compliance? Through digital workspaces and enterprise application development.

Optimizing the Experience for Employees in the Digital Workspace
Today’s workers expect their in-work experience to reflect, and merge with, their digital lives outside of work. The average employee uses five devices to access his or her corporate information, and expects workplace systems to operate in the same manner as his or her favorite social app. Employees want to be able to view content and interactions on their desktop in the office and wherever they are in the building, as well as via their rideshare to the airport.

Critical to creating that experience is offering a single access point where employees can obtain all the information they need to do their jobs. Enabling this kind of anytime, anywhere access in a streamlined way not only helps meet employees’ expectations but also can drastically improve efficiencies and security. Workers can avoid spending unproductive time searching for content and instead focus their attention on the business processes and decisions at hand, while also going through a single controlled gate.

“Enabling this kind of anytime, anywhere access in a streamlined way not only helps meet employees’ expectations but also can drastically improve efficiencies and security.”

Controlling the Information Flow: Security and Compliance
While the consumerization of business enables greater collaboration and flexible access, it’s still IT’s job to maintain security and compliance. Enterprises, especially those in regulated industries, need to identify solutions that enable seamless control of content. This means ensuring that your company’s rules and policies surrounding content or data are made with mobile in mind. It’s important to discuss this with your CIO and have him or her show you how the gates and permissions work.

To retain control and security, information that flows in and out of the digital workspace must keep its origin preserved. This includes its original storage location, despite being viewed and modified from a variety of users across multiple devices. Leveraging innovations including cloud, workspace software, geolocation and even mobile cameras can allow for flexible access to information.

Creating a one-stop access point can also provide control. When rules and policies are applied from one location and carried with information as it flows through the digital workspace, the chances of a misstep are greatly reduced. Compliance today is challenging, met through a complex and labor-intensive process of checks and balances. With one access point to manage information, however, it becomes less daunting.

The push to consumerized digital workspaces is changing how enterprises operate – from employee workflow to backend IT architecture. As the modern workforce becomes more mobile, business will continue to be conducted outside the office, on the same devices consumers use in their personal lives. Businesses that provide a single framework that brings applications together in one place no matter where they’re running, while also enabling IT to centrally manage access, and allowing end users to only focus on the apps that they care about, strike the perfect balance between the needs of the enterprise and the needs of the employee.

These are key areas that a CEO can and should discuss with the CIO to ensure that brands and information are being protected, while at the same time providing employees with the mobile access they want and need. In the end, the business will benefit as well.