Digital workplace:

New ways of working

A five-step approach to seamless work experience
M
ost of the CIOs hear from their team workload-centric; and device, platform, network,
that employees want to collaborate and provider agnostic. A traditional workspace,
dynamically as the expectations of the with its rigid attributes like one device, one
workplace have seen tremendous changes due to platform, one network and one provider, creates
new millennials’ induction into the workforce and challenges for the IT team to manage the current
advanced personal technologies that are expectations set by both – the business and the
occupying enterprise space. Though CIOs expect end user (see Figure 1). A digital workplace with
their team to collaborate dynamically, they the combined force of social, mobile, Cloud and
cannot do it using old model, tools, and analytics can help meet the immediate and
procedures that operate current workplaces. The long-term requirements of the business and
new expectation is agility in work environment the end user and drive a change in the end
equipped with modern tools, technologies to user experience.
facilitate office technologies for collaboration
and boundaryless so that devices and locations The new fluid workspace has to be constructed
do not restrict access to resources. with the intention of enabling enterprise
productivity with ease of access that fulfills
CIOs expect their IT organizations to become next-gen workforce demands. In other words, it
agile by sensing and responding to business should focus, not on devices, but on users’
requirements promptly. Their focus on agility is productivity, along with the user experience.
to deliver the outcomes that business needs.
Also, the employees of today, want to connect An enterprise will require a clear roadmap to
and access content from anywhere, anytime reach the future state of the live workspace from
quickly, and across any device. The workspace of the existing monolithic workspace. The strategy
the future will, therefore, need to meet these should enable users to improve their experience
expectations by being hyper-resilient and agile; with IT Services, rather than restrict the services.

Business units End users IT teams

• User productivity improvements • Rigid environment with less • Provisioning apps instantaneously
accommodation for latest devices
• Scalable and resilient IT Services and apps • Proliferation of devices into
corporate environment
• Data security and compliance • Apps provisioning is tedious
adherence • Multiple application delivery model
• Impassable social collaboration
• Keeping IT operational cost very • Security, governance and
competitive • Productivity apps are blocked data compliance
from external access

Figure 1: Key challenges at IT workplace

How to build a digital workspace an ability to adapt and respond to changes in

the market.
Business growth has become a top priority for
most of the CEOs, and they look at IT to enable it The new digital workspace (see Figure 2)
using new technologies. Digital workplace is a fit stresses upon using modern tools, policies,
for purpose for the new millennials modern technologies, workload delivery models,
workforce and inclusive of consumer platforms to create a collaborative office
technologies that are becoming a new industrial ecosystem; thus, the user can enable the
strength. Both CEO & CIO are looking for workspace at any place.
business innovation in their workplace with

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 The new fluid workspace has to be
constructed with the intention of
enabling enterprise productivity with
ease of access that fulfills next-gen
workforce demands.

Dynamic orchestration and Enterprise store for

provision of IT Services IT Service procurement

Analytics and user

Advanced SSO & IDAM
experience metrics
Digital
workspace
Self-help, self-heal
Flexible workload delivery
and self-aware

Unified integration of devices, Centralized core security

applications and data policies and dynamic crust layer

Figure 2: Digital workspace features

The key characteristics of the digital workspace 4. Workload delivery

will include the following:
5. Security
1. IT service provisioning
6. Unified device, apps, data
2. Storefront for service enablement
7. Self H2A
3. Intelligent SSO & IDAM
8. User experience

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 The need of the hour is to measure and improve end user experience
User experience across transactions and dependent systems.

The new digital workspace should be ‘self-aware’. The environment

Self H2A should have self-heal, self-help and self-service to enable an ecosystem
for enriched user experience and productivity.

The future workspace needs to have a detached approach towards

Unified device, device, apps and data, but each needs to be dependent on the other,
apps, data without any constraint.

Enterprise should create an essential centralized security policy, but offer

Security flexible and accommodative deviations on top of the core policy, thus
serving any business unit, regional or workgroup specific requirements.

IT Service All IT services should be published in a centralized portal with an ease of

provisioning subscription to avail those services.

Enterprise needs to design a store front that will enable personal store
Storefront for
experience for corporate apps along with the pre-approved necessary
service enablement
personal apps for office productivity.

Single sign-in should be enabled with new authentication techniques

Intelligent
like face or retina-based recognition along with fingerprint and password
SSO & IDAM
input method.

Entire desktop workload or application delivery has to be designed

Workload delivery diligently to embrace the hybrid Cloud to facilitate dynamic requirements
that comes in a burst.

Figure 3: Digital workspace capabilities

The enterprise IT team, along with architects and • Data security that follows data and
business IT users, should create 3 not devices
maps—Strategy map, Roadmap and Journey
map. This will help to build a future-ready digital • Evolve an inclusive device support policy
workspace. The strategy should encapsulate the comprising BYODs
following points:
• Walk-in café or technology parlor to socialize
• Focus on user-centric approach, as compared and resolve issues
to device-centric
The Strategy map should represent the overall
• Workspace provisioning using fusion delivery vision, goals and future capabilities; Roadmap
model (on-premises, public Cloud, private should detail project initiatives, capabilities and
Cloud and hybrid Cloud-based VDI or outcome on a time-bound manner; and the
desktop delivery) Journey map should provide a holistic view of
how a transaction/interaction would be fulfilled.

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Five steps to digital workspace

An enterprise would need a clear strategy (see that is agile, user-centric, secure, targeted and
Figure 3) to build the future-ready workspace flexible.

Access Build Operate and manage

Design Migrate

Figure 4: The roadmap to digital workplace

A new way of working is facilitated by comprises the roadmap to a digital workplace,

reorganizing team structures, processes and i.e., assess, design, build, migrate and operate &
user experiences that translates into manage, is defined, and need to consider the
technologies adoption and new behavioral importance of new way of working when
changes. Each step of the strategy that following the below steps:

Assess Design Build & migrate Operate & manage

• Focus data collection • Use the data that was • Create a measurable • Create an efficient
towards current collected during proof-of-concept to operational framework
constraints, pain assessment to design imitate the final to support new
points and technology future workspaces. outcome and improve technologies, tools
gaps that hinder the user experience. and metrics.
• The design should
IT team in its service
focus on following • Rollout necessary • Measuring end user
of its customers.
aspects to create a trainings, in advance, to experience, proactive
• Conduct smart layered approach for business IT and end monitoring of service
workshop(s) to bring crafting, publishing and users to increase the level assurance, and
relevant stakeholders managing services for usability of services. new service enrollment
to stimulate the enterprise needs: should be a major
• User impacts need to
thinking of future criteria while defining
• User-centric service be assessed during
service catalogue the new operational
offerings pilot, and necessary
that would help to framework.
FAQ, user manual,
serve business better. • Flexible service blogs and emailers
catalogue
• The focus of data should be shared with
collection should be: • Service continuum the end users, well in
advance.
• User profiling for • Enterprise store
digital workspace front to avail service
catalogue
• Application
landscape and • Data and device
delivery methods security
• Service orchestration

• Security

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 A digital workspace would mean productivity omnichannel experience. This, in turn, would
improvements due to faster boot-up time, lead to elimination or minimization of field
on-demand applications, and data on the Cloud. support. Availability of data in the Cloud would
It would also unleash creativity and innovation as also help to avoid device dependence to access
employees discover new and seamless ways to or store data. In brief, a digital workspace would
collaborate, ideate and iterate with colleagues, lead to a safe, secure and easy-to-access IT
released from old technology constraints. Use of services and cost savings in the range of
self-heal and self-help would mark a 10%–20%. Moreover, of course, a happy and
considerable improvement in end users’ productive workforce!

About the author

Mahendran Thangarajan
Practice Director – End User
Computing Solution, Wipro

Mahendran has more than 16 years of about creating and stabilizing new services
experience in Technology Consulting and has around end-user computing.
steered large-scale IT transformation projects
for Fortune 100 companies. He is passionate To know more, reach out to marketing.gis@wipro.com

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