The arrival of Generation Y – aka "millennials" – into the enterprise workforce has invigorated even the stodgiest business sectors with a fresh new attitude and work culture. Dressing business casual, for instance, is no longer a once-a-week perk but a given in many offices – that is, if workers are even expected to perform their duties on-site.
This is because one of the largest defining characteristics of the modern workforce in the digital age is mobility. Whether companies allow employees to work remotely or business is conducted on one of many different enterprise mobile devices, there are very few "desk jockeys" left in the modern office.
Instead, workers prefer to collaborate with each other using business applications that take meetings out of the physical boardroom and into cyberspace. Rather than emailing massive files between team members, projects in the digital workspace are tackled in the cloud, enabling real-time collaboration to take place without populating local hard drive space in massive, on-site enterprise servers.
While this connectivity and mobility is expected by the new generation of the enterprise workforce, not every office has been able to effectively change with the times. The demand for real-time collaboration has introduced new performance requirements for enterprise networks to deliver a great user experience. A recent study conducted by BT and InfoVista, Meeting the Network Demands of Changing Generations, found that 90 percent of today’s workforce is unsatisfied with the application performance on their employer’s network overall.
The Times Are Changing Faster Than IT Can Keep Up
This is a glaring figure, though not a surprising one, as the generational shift into a network-driven, software-defined, digital office model has taken flight faster than many legacy network architectures can keep up. While virtual private networks (VPNs) have been widely utilized by businesses for well over a decade, the proliferation of business applications and software-as-a-service (SaaS) has been fast and furious, and IT teams can hardly keep up.
A big reason for this is the fact that many networks aren’t engaging in IT governance. For instance, 94 percent of organizations polled in the survey agree that maintaining the corporate network is mission critical.
However, due to a lack of visibility, only 51 percent of those polled have insight into which applications being used by employees could have a negative impact on the performance of the corporate network.
Adding to the problem is the fact that only 57 percent of those polled actually had IT governance in place that allowed them to monitor and control application performance on the corporate network.
Considering that over the last two years 69 percent of organizations have implemented unified communication and video conferencing into their business, adopting such applications without enabling IT to scale, optimize or plan for future network topologies will only lead to continued employee dissatisfaction.
52 percent of organizations have already launched cloud-based productivity apps and collaboration tools, according to the survey, and it is expected that of those who haven’t yet, just under half will seek this tech within the next two years. Of course this must be accomplished in a secure manner that protects the network, as 59 percent of those surveyed considered this a top three concern.
Enterprises of all stripes that rely on business apps and network functionality to keep their operations running need to adopt network governance practices that allow them to prioritize business-critical applications like Microsoft Office 365 and Skype for Business over personal applications, while also reliably predicting how applications will affect the network. Maximizing the user experience is now a critical service that IT organizations need to deliver optimally. This requires a proactive approach with the right performance management tools in place to be successful. Otherwise, businesses that fall behind the digital times could very well see their organizations go the way of the cubicle, rolodex and other relics of a bygone era.
The Latest
AI sure grew fast in popularity, but are AI apps any good? ... If companies are going to keep integrating AI applications into their tech stack at the rate they are, then they need to be aware of AI's limitations. More importantly, they need to evolve their testing regiment ...
If you were lucky, you found out about the massive CrowdStrike/Microsoft outage last July by reading about it over coffee. Those less fortunate were awoken hours earlier by frantic calls from work ... Whether you were directly affected or not, there's an important lesson: all organizations should be conducting in-depth reviews of testing and change management ...
In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 11, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) ...
On average, only 48% of digital initiatives enterprise-wide meet or exceed their business outcome targets according to Gartner's annual global survey of CIOs and technology executives ...
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping industries around the world. From optimizing business processes to unlocking new levels of innovation, AI is a critical driver of success for modern enterprises. As a result, business leaders — from DevOps engineers to CTOs — are under pressure to incorporate AI into their workflows to stay competitive. But the question isn't whether AI should be adopted — it's how ...
The mobile app industry continues to grow in size, complexity, and competition. Also not slowing down? Consumer expectations are rising exponentially along with the use of mobile apps. To meet these expectations, mobile teams need to take a comprehensive, holistic approach to their app experience ...
Users have become digital hoarders, saving everything they handle, including outdated reports, duplicate files and irrelevant documents that make it difficult to find critical information, slowing down systems and productivity. In digital terms, they have simply shoved the mess off their desks and into the virtual storage bins ...
Today we could be witnessing the dawn of a new age in software development, transformed by Artificial Intelligence (AI). But is AI a gateway or a precipice? Is AI in software development transformative, just the latest helpful tool, or a bunch of hype? To help with this assessment, DEVOPSdigest invited experts across the industry to comment on how AI can support the SDLC. In this epic multi-part series to be posted over the next several weeks, DEVOPSdigest will explore the advantages and disadvantages; the current state of maturity and adoption; and how AI will impact the processes, the developers, and the future of software development ...
Half of all employees are using Shadow AI (i.e. non-company issued AI tools), according to a new report by Software AG ...
On their digital transformation journey, companies are migrating more workloads to the cloud, which can incur higher costs during the process due to the higher volume of cloud resources needed ... Here are four critical components of a cloud governance framework that can help keep cloud costs under control ...