Top 10 ways to
deliver more value
to your IT users
Top 10 ways to deliver more
value to your IT users
Today, technology is measured according to its contribution to the user experience – and, by
extension, the extent to which it enables organizations to realize their strategic goals.
That means IT departments must adapt. They must be
enablers, delivering the zero-friction technology
experiences that transform user productivity and drive
business performance.
They must embrace the consumerization of IT – to
give end users technology that is as effective as the
technology they use in their personal lives.
So, if you want to maximize end user value, here are
the top 10 issues you should consider.
1. Give them mobility, on their
terms
Workforces that sit behind desks are things of the past
– so IT needs to enable seamless mobility. Seamless
doesn’t mean insisting on corporate-specified mobile
devices; it means giving users the flexibility to stick
with devices they know and love.
Success in embracing ‘Bring Your Own’ boils down to
the right blend of hardware, software, management
and controls, and user education - with key
considerations including security, usage policies,
privacy concerns, management platform and network
performance.
2. Deliver an HQ IT experience
everywhere
Location is irrelevant. End users expect anywhere,
anytime access to IT services - and they won’t tolerate
clunky interfaces and patchy performance. Delivering
this experience is about standardization and
simplification. Running diverse IT infrastructures
across multiple locations is asking for trouble – you
risk end users feeling that anyone outside HQ is the
‘poor relation’ when it comes to the IT experience.
The first step should be delivering consistent,
remotely managed and monitored IT to end users,
upon which one can then leverage innovations in
cloud services and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
(VDI) solutions. This will ensure you deliver a
complete HQ IT experience to remote users.
3. Go Social
There is no escaping the importance of social platforms in
users’ personal lives and, as a new generation enters the
workforce, they will become ever more important in a
business context. Social tools like instant messaging are the
go-to channels for collaboration between individuals, teams
and between organizations – and they drive significant
efficiencies.
The truth is users will turn to social tools with or without
help from IT. So corporate enablement is as much about
information security and compliance as it is about providing
the tools that will be increasingly important to the IT
experience
4. No more logging-on 50 times a day
As end users access more and more software systems and
applications, single-sign on (SSO) will be increasingly
important to delivering a low-friction IT experience.
No-one wants to log in every time they access a different
system or application. They just want to get on with the job
at hand, seamlessly switching between different tools, both
on-premises and in the cloud. SSO delivers that experience
while enhancing security by ensuring that user credentials
remain under the control of the IT department.
5. IT accessibility, no matter what
These days, downtime is not a fact of IT life. Users have
zero tolerance – IT should just work and be there when they
need it, no matter what.
Of course failures happen. The trick is to make sure a failure
does not mean downtime – and that depends on having the
right failover infrastructure in place. So, if your organization
relies on local data and applications, you’d better believe
that finding time to design, implement and test your disaster
recovery processes is mission critical.
6. Need for speed
Who wants finger–tapping time while waiting for
applications and services to load? IT should be instant,
so your IT infrastructure needs to deliver access to
applications and data in a way that balances both
performance and mobility – especially if you’re using
cloud services like Office 365 and Microsoft Azure.
A Hybrid IT infrastructure that enables distributed
cloud not only delivers high performance. It provides a
platform on which to deliver the applications that
make end users happy – collaboration tools, file
sharing tools, social tools and more.
7. Support that’s not just about
problems
IT support isn’t just about fixing broken technology
any more, it is about helping users to derive maximum
value from technology. It’s about driving productivity
and business value. The first step along this road is to
understand how users employ the technology they
have – using end-user activity monitoring tools and
behavior analysis to track and understand user activity
in real-time. Then you can help them do more.
And why not give users the crowd-sourced tools they
need to fix common problems themselves, rather than
wait for IT? Self-service support is good for
productivity and eliminates total reliance on IT for
minor fixes.
8. Give them a sense of security
Users want an IT experience they can trust - an
environment that is secured against viruses and
malware to which they have uninterrupted access
whether they are using mobile devices or not.
Enterprise-grade antivirus and anti-malware are the
basics but users want peace of mind over the threat of
leaked company data. If you want to deliver a robust IT
environment that users can trust, you also need realtime scanning, access and authentication and content
examination tools - to ensure that all content is secure
and protected.
9. Up or down. Always ready to go
Most businesses will either downsize or expand during
their lifetime so they need the ability to rapidly scale
server and business application resources as needs
change.
An efficient IT infrastructure that is agile enough to
cater for changing needs eliminates end user issues –
whether that change is driven by a merger or
acquisition, new office openings or just seasonal
demand.
10. Be API with IT diversity
Meeting rapidly changing user demand for a diverse
array of IT services means operating an IT
infrastructure that makes it easy to provision multiple
applications in a fast and efficient manner.
The key here is API integration that allows end users
to complete a job in one application while its status
and time is updated elsewhere, making the end user
experience seamless.
HPE ProLiant EC200a Managed
Hybrid Server
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For more information
Visit hpe.com/servers/EC200a for more information on our
solutions.
The partnership
HPE and Zynstra are working together to transform
workplaces across the globe. If you’re interested in moving to
a simpler, more agile and cost-effective IT infrastructure
and/or you are looking to see how your business can benefit
from the cloud, get in touch today.
About Zynstra
Zynstra is a software company, formed by experienced
technology and business entrepreneurs. We have a track
record in creating enterprise grade software, and delivering it
into successful operation inside some of the most complex
and rigorous IT organizations in the world.
Our experience has shown us how to delight our customers –
with a single-minded focus on how software can help them
grow and save them money. Zynstra are the winners of the
2015 IT Industry Awards for Infrastructure Innovation of the
Year.
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