Have You Prepared Yourself for the Cloud Working Regime?

If it is said that cloud has completely brought about a phenomenal transformation in our lives, it is certainly not an exaggerated statement. Even on personal levels, a number of people are already placing their orders including those for foods and transportation, streaming media, and are keeping in touch with their family members and friends using devices that work on the cloud technology. Enterprises such as Adobe, Cisco, VMware, and Citrix have positioned themselves appropriately for redefining how people are getting their jobs done. Of course, this includes accessing of apps and data wherever and whenever required. In other words, the present age is an era of cloud working.

Not only the general public, even employees want to access data, services, and information without the hassles or the barriers that were posed by archaic and legacy tools. Admins and managers do not want to squander their time over administrative tasks such as managing and monitoring devices constantly. Instead, they want to create real value for their organizations.

Findings of a study carried out by Forrester reveal that 25% of today's employees have already started using cloud. These cloud workers, on an average, spend about 4.6 hours daily to access business apps using multiple devices that work on cloud. These employees gleefully admit that they enjoy more freedom, thanks to the cloud technology, because they are able to access whatever information and company data they need from anywhere and at any time. This change in the scenario helps them maintain better work/life balance. In fact, employees are looking for more number of cloud-based apps so they can do their tasks more efficiently. According to an estimate, the percentage of apps in the cloud in 2018 is around 53. This percentage is likely to go up to 80 by 2020.

There is no wonder a number of businesses have started rethinking their technologies and tools because they want to use their workforce more effectively. This means that very soon, office workers need not keep sitting behind their desks. Field teams, even if they are in remote places, will also have more efficient, real-time connectivity. They can interact with their customers instantly and hence, their customer service efforts will be more fulfilling and purposeful. Employees can be more mobile as well. In fact, about 77% of employees admit that they like such freedom because they can choose to work whenever they want and also regardless of where they are.

IT organizations that are now doing the job of managing devices, apps, and browsers have started reassessing as to how they can more effectively serve the requirements of cloud-centric workforce. These organizations are trying to bring out secure and more reliable tools so they can provide their users with the flexibility they desire to have. These organizations are also aware that users will want simple-to-maintain-and-manage tools.

Google is also offering cloud-native devices such as Chromebooks. These devices have brought about marked improvement in productivity and employee collaboration. Not only that, they have also decreased IT-support hours, due to which operational overheads have come down drastically. To quote an example,  at Google, when the question of device provisioning and deployment arises, an inventory tech takes only about 33 minutes for preparing a Chrome OS device for getting deployed for an end-user. On the other hand, Windows devices and macOS take nearly 2 1/2 hours for making their respective devices. It is not surprising to note that these Windows and macOS devices that are done with Chrome OS seek increased support services from Google. Thanks to clouds-first tools such as Chromebooks, in due course of time, this dependence for support services will come down substantially, which will ultimately pave way for significant savings.

Cloud-connected workplaces continue to be evolving and hence, more number of employees are transitioning from being knowledge-alone workers to being cloud-also workers. So, organizations have to choose and put in place the right tools for improving working experience of their employees and for achieving better results for themselves. In other words, organizations have to prepare themselves for the cloud-working era by identifying the right resources. They have to train their employees as well. Organizations must not hesitate to seek the help of specialists, explore the efficacy of the latest tools and devices, and have an in-depth look at the demos of these tools and devices. Only then, they can have the most appropriate devices that suit their businesses. These organizations should remember that their employees will start loving them more if they help them maintain more effective work-life balance, thanks to the flexibility cloud working offers to them.