Digital Transformation: Give the People What They Want (and Need)

With all the talk about digital transformation—and there is a LOT these days—one critical factor sometimes goes unsaid: people.

Technology is the digital transformation enabler, but the end goal should be making internal and external customers more productive, more engaged, more collaborative, more agile and more creative. MSPs are well-positioned to guide clients on a digital transformation path that will support such a high-performing digital workspace—or, the kind of “digital dexterity” that Gartner discussed during its recent Symposium/IT Expo.

Digital dexterity, according to Gartner, is about “a new organizational design and a new talent mix for a new working environment—a high-performing digital workspace.” Such a workspace requires three building blocks, Gartner recommends:

Indeed, MSPs should work with customers to develop a digital transformation strategy based not on what problems technology can solve—that’s too limiting on its own–but instead on what level of innovation and collaboration technology can enable. Look for platforms that can support multiple kinds of data sets from multiple sources, devices of varying kinds, and people with differing interests, backgrounds and skill sets. 

In other words, figure out what works best—and will work best moving forward– for people and processes, then make your technology choices.

Key to this is a flexible yet robust digital workspace—a set of technologies, yes, but also a mindset. By taking advantage of today’s cloud-based management technologies, an effective digital workspace delivers self-service, out-of-the-box experiences that scale across platforms, locations, and device and application ownership models. Such a workspace imposes no limits on what users can do, but at the same time ensures security, integrity and privacy.

How End Users Define the Digital Workspace 

At EUC Insights 2017, VMware asked attendees for their definition of a digital workspace. Based on hundreds of responses in the Americas event alone, more than half of respondents said that the digital workspace is anywhere, anytime access from any device. Many attendees said the digital workspace is all about applications and data being delivered based on their roles, but the most popular answer was also the most simple—and meaningful: The digital workspace is everything users need to get work done.

“A digital workspace is the virtual equivalent of a physical workspace that allows users to work from anywhere, potentially increasing productivity and changing how we see optimal work environments,” said one respondent.

Another respondent noted the importance of security and identity management when it comes to an effective digital workspace: “A digital workspace is a controlled environment where a user can perform their day-to-day tasks with ease, without the fear of lost data and downtime.”

When the digital workspace can be leveraged as a tool for connecting and transforming processes to drive agility and innovation among the workforce, it can lead to digital—and business—transformation.