Top 5 Reasons to Evolve Your Desktops

A lot has changed since the ‘90s. From the way people work, to business threats, to demands on IT. But desktops haven’t changed all that much. It’s time for desktops to evolve to meet today’s expectations. Here are five reasons your approach to desktops could use a face lift.

1. People work outside of the office now

Whether it’s taking work home in the evenings or weekends, working away from the office occasionally or being 100% remote, employees are working outside the office more often these days.

If you want to capture that productivity, employees need a (secure) way to access their desktops, applications and data when they’re away from HQ.

43% of American workers report working remotely at least part of the time. – New York Times

2. Your data walks out the door everyday

Because employees are working outside of traditional office hours and environments, they’re taking the information and data they need with them. It’s now routine to take your work laptop home with you and many (if not most) workers would probably admit to emailing a file to themselves so they can keep working on a different device. Every time your data walks out the door your risk of a breach increases.

The use of contract workers has also increased, meaning organizations are trusting outside workers who might never actually be in the office and could be using a personal device while accessing corporate information and resources. (Learn how to plan for secure data access before you bring on another contractor.)

An average of 181 vendors access a company’s network every week. – Bomgar

3. IT can’t keep up

Even the best IT teams face an uphill battle these days, and it’s not their fault. With the number of devices, offices and workers they need to support, menial tasks like software updates and help desk requests take up way too much of their time – at the expense of business driving initiatives.

Making smart desktop decisions eases this burden by centralizing IT management and making time consuming but important tasks like patching and updating security controls simple without having to touch every single device.

IT roles are the second hardest positions to fill worldwide. – TechRepublic

4. The board is asking about cybersecurity 

If there’s one buzzword no business can escape these days, it’s cybersecurity. With the amount of press the issue has been getting lately, boards of directors and c-suites are sure to be asking about it.

Desktops present a huge risk for companies. They’re an easy point of entry for many cyberattacks (and the portal for employee mistakes and security missteps). It’s also the single application 100% of your employees and contractors interact with every day.

Having a good security plan in place when it comes to isolating desktops can go a long way in convincing the BOD and executives that you are actively addressing cybersecurity (in a way that they can understand).

45% of employees say they’ve engage in unsafe security behaviors, such as using public Wi-Fi to access confidential data, using a personal email account for work related activities and losing their company-issued device. – Dell

5. Everything else is moving to the cloud

“Cloud first” and “cloud forward” are common terms in business these days. Cloud solutions and virtualization has a range of benefits:

• Better business continuity and disaster recovery
• Freedom to focus on business-driving initiatives
• Moving from CAPEX to OPEX and reduced infrastructure costs
• Increased security

If your organization is moving to cloud solutions, your desktops shouldn’t be the one thing holding you back.

80% of IT budgets will be dedicated to cloud solutions by mid-2018. – Forbes

You may also like:

• Understanding Virtual Desktop Sizing
• Are You the Reason Employees Aren’t Productive?
• What to Look for in a DaaS Provider