Mobilizing Your Workforce

Many businesses are moving towards mobilizing their workforces in order to deal directly with their customers, or work on-the-go. A mobile office keeps employees connected at all times with customers, vendors, and partners, and can increase productivity. The trend of adopting solutions for a virtual office and mobile workforce can be noted through the following industry metrics:

• More than 50% of recent global PC sales were notebooks and netbooks.
• Worldwide mobile device sales equaled $1.6 billion in 2010 (Gartner).
• Smart phone sales went up by 72.1% in 2010 (Gartner).
• Analysts predict that by 2012, as the dependency on Cloud services and their associated benefits grows, 20% of businesses will not own any IT assets (John Barnes, Cloud Slam 2011).
• A mobile Cloud Computing strategy will be on the table for every business within five years (John Barnes, Cloud Slam 2011).
• 94% of employees need to be connected at all times (noted in a recent iPass report; John Barnes, Cloud Slam 2011).

Although a substantial shift to mobile is obvious, there are still roadblocks for some businesses. The challenge that most businesses face in becoming more mobile is that traditional IT is typically designed for on-premise use, without consideration for mobile and remote access. This is where Cloud Computing and advanced Cloud services will allow businesses to enable an access anywhere model.

Mobility via Cloud Services

WAN Optimized. Cloud services are inherently WAN (Wide Area Network) optimized, which easily allows mobile workers and remote offices to remotely access critical business applications and systems.

Unlimited Remote Access. While business applications, data, and systems are centralized, they can still be accessed remotely. This means access any time, through any device, on any connection.

Quick Deployment. Another benefit of the Cloud solution to mobile business is that is can be quickly deployed as there is generally very little software that needs to be installed and configured on a user’s computing device.

In mobilizing your workforce, it is important to remember that on-premise, LAN-based, traditional IT solutions are often not suited for the situation. Simply providing your employees with mobile devices like laptops does not mobilize your workforce. Traditionally, businesses have deployed such technology as VPN for remote access. This often requires the provisioning of expensive hardware in addition to complex configuration, setup, and on-going maintenance. To become truly mobile, employees must have access to their business applications, data, and systems with a remote desktop solution that delivers a similar or better user experience as local computing. With WAN optimization, unlimited remote access capabilities and quick deployment, Cloud services allow organizations to access critical business applications, data, and systems regardless of location, connection, and device used.