Are you equipped to support a mobile workforce?

In recent years, the boundaries of business have changed. Now, corporate processes don’t just happen at the office between the hours of nine and five. Employees are working from their homes, from client sites, from the corner coffee shop and from conference and break rooms across corporate headquarters. This level of mobility can really boost productivity, allowing workers to operate and complete tasks from any location that suits their current purposes and preferences.

In order to make this possible, though, your business needs to have a few critical technologies in place. Is your organization set up to provide for the needs of its mobile and remote employees?

Statistics say it all: Growing mobile workforce

The push toward a mobile workforce has been felt in nearly every industry in every country across the globe. If your company doesn’t currently support remote employees, chances are very good that it will within the next few years. In that spirit, there are a few key numbers to keep in mind about this phenomenon:

• The IDC predicted in 2015 that there will be more than 105 million mobile employees by 2020. These workers would make up almost three-quarters of the entire workforce in the United States.
• Citrix found that right now, 61 percent of office employees work at some location outside of their regular office at least part of the time.
• These workers typically leverage three or more devices to complete mission-critical corporate tasks from their remote locations.

Remote employees need certain technological tools and capabilities to support their productivity.

Are you set up for success?

A mobile workforce has very specific needs. Without the right tools, applications and access, these workers cannot hope to be as productive or successful as they could be when armed appropriately. Currently, it’s not enough to provide laptops and a smartphone and call it a day. But what, exactly, do your mobile workers need to support their remote processes?

The cloud: This is a given. The cloud is an absolutely essential piece of the puzzle here, allowing remote workers to have access to a range of documents, data and other assets that they rely on to do their jobs. What’s more, the cloud ensures that everyone is on the same page, displaying the most up-to-date information while also supporting real-time collaboration. In this way, nothing falls through the cracks – multiple users can access and work on the same item from their various locations while viewing the changes or additions their co-workers are making in real time.

Virtualized resources: Working in conjunction with the power of the cloud is virtualization, an impactful technology strategy that’s been implemented in more offices and remote sites across the globe. Desktop and application virtualization allows employees to utilize the tools and systems they would normally access on their work desktops from any location with an internet connection. This means that employees still have access to proprietary platforms, company intellectual property and other items that they could not get or use elsewhere.

Data center and cloud management: With a cloud-based, virtualized infrastructure in place, your IT team will need tools that allow them to properly manage these assets. A data center and cloud management solution should include specific, purpose-built tools. It should also enable IT admins and staff members to view all assets across the corporate infrastructure while also supporting simple, streamlined management of these items. When data center and cloud assets are managed appropriately, their performance is guaranteed, and remote staff members need not worry about a certain application or platform not working as it should.

Enterprise mobility management: Where a data center and cloud management tool can bring everything under one roof for IT supervisors, an enterprise mobility management platform can do the same for stakeholders throughout the company. This scalable platform creates a single console from which executives can manage every system and device across the organization. This level of visibility and control is key for successfully supporting a remote workforce.

Industry-leading solutions from iT1 Source

The above-described assets are absolutely essential, and expert solutions provider iT1 Source now makes it easy for your organization to have everything it needs. iT1 has partnered with the best technology companies in the world, including VMware, to ensure that your company has only best-of-breed solutions in place. VMware provides the very best in data center and cloud infrastructure and management, virtualization and mobility management.

To find out more, contact iT1 Source today.