Who Needs Virtual Desktops?

Virtual desktops are about more than just getting work done. Viewed the right way, the technology can be used as a powerful business tool that benefits every employee and department.

While virtual desktops can be good for everyone, there are certain roles within an organization that can benefit more and should be advocates for the move. From the drivers of digital transformation to the people who are kept up at night by security concerns, here are a few key personas that might want to take a closer look at desktop virtualization and what it can do for them. For those interested in even more benefits, fully managed desktop as a service (DaaS) provides additional benefits over in-house VDI.

CIOs

The role of CIO as the driver of digital transformation within a company is a popular narrative this year. Moving desktops to the cloud is one of the “lowest hanging fruit” tasks a company can take when pursuing digital transformation and lays the groundwork for larger cultural and technology shifts. The centralized management, consistency, and ease of provisioning frees CIOs and their teams up to focus on other, larger business-driving initiatives.

Moving to virtual desktops also give CIOs something they love but have been lacking with desktops – analytics. Nearly every employee in an organization works on a desktop – that generates a lot of data. Without desktop virtualization, that information largely lives in a black box. But with virtual desktop solutions that offer insight and analytics capabilities CIOs can better understand how employees, desktops and applications are performing. Armed with this data, CIOs can optimize tech stacks and computing resources and make data-backed business decisions and recommendations.

The Power of the CIO

In many organizations, the CIO is the one making the final decision on implementing virtual desktops. They may have to convince the rest of the C-Suite, but CIOs have their finger on the pulse and future state of an organization’s technology. If unification, expansion or digital transformation are on your agenda, virtual desktops should be too.

Key Benefits

• Move desktops and supporting hardware from CAPEX to OPEX
• Give IT teams more time to focus on business-driving initiatives
• Reduce IT complexity by engaging a fully managed DaaS provider
• Support departments and use cases with right-sized environments
• Enhance data security and compliance
• Easily and securely support BYOD and remote working programs
• Access critical business insights and data to make smarter decisions

IT Teams

It’s no secret that IT teams and budgets aren’t growing for most organizations – but their responsibilities are. To make the most of the resources they have, smart IT teams are turning to solutions that make some of the most routine tasks – like provisioning a new desktop or troubleshooting – easier and faster.

Virtual desktops make it easy to provision, rightsize, troubleshoot and maintain desktops with a fraction of the effort required by traditional desktop management. When working with a DaaS provider, responsibilities are further simplified as solution experts will help in-house teams properly design and tune environments to the organization’s unique specifications.

When it’s time to provision a new desktop or make critical security updates, it only takes a few minutes rather than hours of work. (Transcom, a global provider of customer care outsourcing, reduced new-employee provisioning time from 6-7 hours down to just 15 minutes! Check out the case study >>)

The Power of IT Teams

While IT teams don’t always have the decision making power when it comes a big changes like moving to virtual desktops, they are one of the groups that benefit the most and can be powerful, vocal advocates for VDI. The key is to focus on the business benefits and follow these tips on being an effective internal champion.

Key Benefits

• Centralized management, allowing for quick and easy provisioning, updating and patching
• Easily create right-sized environments and deliver apps based on use case/department
• More time to focus on business-driving initiatives and other demands
• Easier troubleshooting with real-time user and environment insights
• With DaaS, no need to support, maintain and replace infrastructure
• Support company-required legacy apps
• Avoid the compatibility headache of OS updates

CISO & Security Pros

Cybersecurity isn’t getting any easier, and data beaches are getting bigger and more widely reported (meaning angry consumers and bad publicity). Add in more employees using their own devices and the increase in remote and mobile working and security pros likely aren’t sleeping very well right now.

Virtual desktops enhance security in two major ways:

• They keep all data off the endpoint (meaning if a device is lost or stolen, data isn’t compromised)
• It’s easier to consistently provision and update security and controls based on use cases (leaving fewer gaps and reducing human error)

While desktops might not seem like a natural tool to security professionals, ensuring your data is protected at this most base level goes a long way to overall corporate security. The risk of a cyberattack is much greater than the risk of someone stealing paper files today, so security pros need to work closely with the CIO and IT teams to create a comprehensive approach to data security that includes both policies and technologies.

The Power of Security Pros

For many organizations, only revenue is more compelling than security (and those who don’t value security will eventually find themselves in hot water). This makes CISOs and other security professionals powerful advocates of change when it comes to implementing virtual desktops.

Key Benefits

• Easier to administer security measures and controls consistently to all employees
• Ensure the same level of security regardless of user location – even remote employees
• Security updates and patches can be quickly and comprehensively distributed to all users
• No more worrying about data exposure from a lost or stolen endpoint
• More easily achieve and maintain compliance (with some solutions)