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The IT Leadership Summit's Latest Virtual Event: Service Experience

Tue, 09 Jun 2020 18:57:37 Z

The IT Leadership Summit is back with a new, free virtual event: Service Experience! On June 24, Service Experience experts from across the globe are coming together to deliver an all-day virtual event discussing how better insights can lead to better outcomes for IT, your users, and entire businesses.

Don’t miss out on this free virtual event. Register now!

What to Expect

Automating key processes and providing an engaging service experience doesn’t have to be limited to IT. This virtual event covers how IT can help other business units take their first steps to digital transformation and help all parts of an enterprise realize the benefits of automating business processes for request, problem, change, and asset management—and provide an engaging experience anytime, from anywhere.

This, and more, is covered in five sessions:

Session 1: Enterprise Service Management: More Than Service Management Beyond IT
Session 2: Improving the Service Experience Beyond IT
Session 3: Achieve Better Outcomes When ITSM & ITAM Work Together
Session 4: Shift Happens! Dealing with the Unexpected
Session 5: A Practical Guide to Leverage Service Management Best Practices Across the Enterprise

Session 1: Enterprise Service Management: More Than Service Management Beyond IT

Learn how the definition of Enterprise Service Management (ESM) is changing and what organizations must prepare today in order to deliver services to the enterprise tomorrow. Also hear from the University of Glasgow how ESM is changing, what IT needs to do to prepare, and what capabilities to consider.

Session 2: Improving the Service Experience Beyond IT

Learn how IT teams across the globe used automated workflows to help departments across their org deliver better results to end-users. Data-segregation capabilities to ensure each department’s data is invisible to others, and more, will also be covered with example case studies.

Session 3: Achieve Better Outcomes When ITSM & ITAM Work Together

Hear IT teams (from Healthcare, Higher Education, Government, and Staffing Organizations) share the outcomes they achieved when expanding their Service Management processes with IT Asset Management.

Session 4: Shift Happens! Dealing with the Unexpected

Get the real stories of IT service management’s role in supporting emergency response plans and what it takes to manage through the unexpected—from moving to remote work overnight and adjusting business continuity plans to keeping up service delivery in not one but two hurricanes.

Session 5: A Practical Guide to Leverage Service Management Best Practices Across the Enterprise

Practical tips and lessons learned in how IT can help the rest of the company improve their service delivery and achieve better outcomes across the board—from helping other departments streamline their operations to using automation to reduce manual steps and get rid of the paper forms.

Sign Up Now

The IT Leadership Summit: Service Experience is a full day of service-delivery insights, actionable takeaways, and use cases you can’t get anywhere else. Plus, it comes without any gimmicky sales pitches AND at zero cost.

Can’t make it on June 24? Don’t worry. The sessions will be made available on-demand for all who sign up. Reserve your seat today!

Ivanti's Parental Leave Policy Hits Close to Home

Thu, 21 May 2020 13:31:03 Z

Working at Ivanti comes with a host of benefits: health and dental insurance, contributions to a health savings account, and 401k matching. Additional benefits include working in our new HQ and the company’s VTO policy—volunteer time off so employees can take time away from the office to help in the community without having to use paid time off.

Ivanti's Parental Leave Policy

Perhaps the best benefit in my eyes, however, is Ivanti's parental leave policy introduced at the end of 2019. This, among other things, includes four weeks of paid leave for full-time employees after the birth of a child.

As stated in the policy, “The Company believes flexibility and family-friendly policies are important to cultivating an atmosphere where employees can thrive professionally without sacrificing family obligations. The purpose of Parental Leave offered under this policy is to give parents time to care for and bond with their new child(ren) and adjust to their new family situation.”

This announcement was welcomed news in the Lalli home.

In August of 2019, my wife and I learned we were expecting our first child. At that point in time there was no established parental leave policy in place at Ivanti, and balancing the birth of our son and work obligations was a major stressor in my mind.

This stress was alleviated with the announcement of this policy and allowed me to focus on work during the pregnancy, knowing that when our little boy joined us, I would be available to care for him and my wife.

Enter 2020, yes, the year of the “new normal”.

COVID-19

As things with COVID-19 escalated in the US, it was an interesting time to be expecting a baby. A wild mix of up-and-down emotions. The reassurance of the parental leave policy was a huge comfort as we got closer to delivery.

As COVID-19 became more serious and the due date got closer, I was also able to begin working from home, which helped alleviate having-a-baby-during-a-pandemic stress.

Fortunately, everything went well with labor and delivery and we brought our baby boy home the following day. (Disclaimer: We kept the face masks we were required to wear while in the hospital as a keepsake.)

My appreciation of having time off from work grew with each day after arriving home. Although I had gotten comfortable working from home before our son’s birth—and even thought I’d be able to continue some projects once he was born—I soon realized how nice it was to be offline and have the ability to focus on caring for my family.

Work-Life Balance

Like many first-time parents, I had underestimated the time and attention a newborn requires. I also underestimated the joy that would come from focusing all my time and attention on my little family.

Needless to say, no work was done, no projects continued. And that was ok. Instead of conference calls, I enjoyed sleepless nights, diaper changes, and the sense of victory that comes from getting your little one to fall asleep.

The biggest benefit in all of this, however, was the peace and reassurance that me being home gave my wife and vice versa. Without the demands of having to work, I was more present and available to help take care of her and our baby. And together we are figuring things out! (Whispers: She’s a much quicker learner than I am.)

Now, being back in the (virtual) office, I am reenergized and ready to work harder than ever.

Through this experience, it’s clear to see that Ivanti has established an “...atmosphere where employees can thrive professionally without sacrificing family obligations.” Many thanks to Ivanti and those who picked up the slack while I was gone allowing me to focus on my family during such a special time in our lives.

For all you parents raising or expecting newborns right now, hang in there!

Stay safe.

Enhance Your Windows 10 Experience With User Workspace Management

Wed, 29 Apr 2020 16:39:01 Z

Windows 10 migration dominated IT bandwidth at the close of 2019 and might still be lingering as we enter Q2 of 2020. But for those who have successfully migrated, the priority now switches to managing the madness of Windows 10. How do you best manage the latest version of Windows and ensure a quality experience for end users?

As more enterprise-level features are added to Windows 10, it’s time to identify solutions to enhance user experience, protect endpoints, and manage various other features in Windows 10. Enter User Workspace Management (UWM) from Ivanti.

In our latest infographic, “5 Ways to Enhance your Windows 10 Experience,” we outline how UWM helps you get the most out of your Windows 10 implementation.

Here are five areas in which to enhance you Windows 10 experience:

1. Personalization

99% of the apps used for the enterprise are unable to leverage Windows 10 “Sync your settings” feature. This causes a huge problem when trying to personalize the end user experience.

Ivanti User Workspace Management helps solve this problem by providing total, flexible coverage of all Windows desktop applications allowing personalization for enterprise. AKA, problem solved.

2. Security at the Endpoint

Without a solution like User Workspace Management, managing Windows 10 to secure endpoints will require a significant amount of IT overhead and in-depth customization.

This is especially important when considering 23% of IT professionals surveyed cited mitigating security risks as their top reason for migrating to Windows 10. Mitigating security risks is a crucial benefit of Windows 10, but without UWM, the backend work to do so might be too much for your IT org to handle.

3. Data Storage

Windows 10 and Office 365 integrate with OneDrive better than ever before, giving IT more visibility into files and folders synced to the Microsoft cloud. But this leaves a blind spot for offline files and folders.

Offline files and folders on several machines within an IT environment inhibit true visibility into your org. Ivanti User Workspace Management enhances the new benefits of Windows 10 while providing greater visibility into data storage and a seamless user experience.

4. Migration and Roaming between Windows 7 and 10

At the end of 2019, around 70% of business desktops were still running on Windows 7. According to our survey results, the biggest inhibitors of Windows 10 migration included other IT priorities, time/resources, and application readiness.

Out of the box, Windows 10 doesn’t allow roaming between Windows 7 and 10. Without this capability it is nearly impossible to track devices by license and type between the two. User Workspace Management by Ivanti allows roaming between Windows 7 and 10, so regardless of where you are in your migration or management of Windows 10, user experience won’t suffer.

5. Tracking Adoption

Another problem with many IT environments split between Windows 7 and 10 is tracking which devices are on which software. Ivanti User Workspace Management offers a variety of tools that track device license version, device type, and can produce interactive reports to help you better manage Windows 10 and future updates.

Properly tracking adoption will ensure you can deliver the best experience for each individual end user.

Enhance Your Experience and Avoid Costly Mistakes

Windows 10 contains many great features, but in enterprises of any size where IT wants to control and protect user security and experience, User Workspace Management is essential. UWM can help enhance your Windows 10 experience and help you avoid common problems and costly mistakes within your IT org.

Three Steps to Better Insights and Better Outcomes

Mon, 16 Mar 2020 18:54:00 Z

In the past, IT asset management and IT service management processes have been separate disciplines with different objectives and goals. Given this reality, Ivanti recently surveyed over 1600 IT professionals to better understand the alignment of asset and service management processes.

Some results weren’t surprising. Laptop and desktop computers are the most common managed assets, while niche industry-specific devices are the least managed. Our key finding, however, is clear. More visibility into your IT landscape makes it easier to delight your customers, improve services, and optimize for cost and performance. Hint—unifying your IT solutions leads to this coveted visibility.

Our latest infographic, Three Steps to Better Insights and Better Outcomes, outlines the importance of unifying your IT asset and service management processes to increase visibility into your org, and offers actionable steps you can take to enhance your insights and outcomes in IT.

Step 1 – Discover and Understand What You're Using

A lack of visibility in an IT org is a key to disaster. After all, how can you secure a device you don’t even know exists? Out of the 1600 surveyed IT professionals, 43% admitted that they are still using spreadsheets to track IT assets—a less-than-ideal situation to be in, to say the least.

On the other end of the spectrum, one IT team recently traded their spreadsheets and other basic tools for Ivanti and discovered 30% more devices than they previously thought they had. Fortunately, these recently discovered assets are now secured—security crisis avoided.

Along with swapping spreadsheets for better technology, combining asset and service management processes and data together is another great way to increase visibility into your IT org. Two-thirds of survey respondents expect better visibility of their IT estate from combining IT service and asset management processes together.

Step 2 – Manage Your Assets and Services Effectively

Combining traditionally siloed disciplines also increases how effective you are at managing assets and services. For example, you get a service ticket to fix a machine and promptly take care of the issue. Later, you realize this machine is under warranty and you’ve wasted time and money taking care of an issue that was covered. Cue facepalm emoji. Unfortunately, this scenario is a common occurrence for 50% of those we surveyed.

A different IT team came across a similar issue, but using Ivanti, they managed assets and services together to quickly identify which machines to refresh and which to send back to warranty to avoid incurring unnecessary costs.

Managing assets and services together is a sure way to boost visibility and be more effective in your IT environment.

Step 3 – Optimize for Cost and Performance

With the status quo of managing assets and services separately, companies find themselves absorbing significant costs from using multiple vendors. Enter Unified IT with Ivanti. Bringing IT needs under one umbrella not only optimizes for cost and performance, but IT teams that have switched to Ivanti were able to achieve better insights, outcomes, and more value.

Along with the 64% of respondents who expect to see better visibility from combining IT asset and IT service management, they also expect to see:

Increased IT staff productivity – 59%
Optimized costs – 54%
Improve service deliverability – 53%

The expectations are clear: IT professionals feel combining IT asset and service management processes and data will increase visibility and productivity, improve deliverability, and optimize costs.

Harder isn’t always smarter.

Stop doing the same work twice. Improve visibility, maximize efficiency, and ultimately make your job easier by unifying your IT processes with Ivanti. Follow these steps to make sure 2020 is the year you step into better insights and better outcomes in your IT environment.

The 5 Best Pieces of Career Advice I've Ever Received

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 20:33:29 Z

I am not one for trite platitudes that are often preached on social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, but I do find intrinsic value in a few pieces of professional advice I have received throughout my life.

This career advice is not only applicable in the office, but I have found value from it in my personal life as well. Here are the five best career tips, tricks, and advice I have received.

1. Control what you can control.

In Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he discusses how every individual has a circle of influence that they can control, coupled with a circle of concern that they cannot control.

He explains that as we focus on what we can control, our circle of influence becomes larger and our circle of concern shrinks. Vice versa, as we focus on fixing things outside of our control, our circle of influence becomes smaller and smaller.

Therein lies the wonderful principle: control what you can control. In my personal and professional life, as I have focused on what I can control and not worried about things outside my circle of influence, I have been more productive and less stressed.

2. Never rest until the good gets better and the better gets best.

My late grandpa, the son of hard-nosed Italian immigrants, lived by the mantra, "Never rest until the good gets better and the better gets best."

This quote rings true in my ears. It motivates me to work my hardest and, perhaps more importantly, to keep building on the skill sets I have day after day.

3. Keep things in perspective.

The ups and downs of—to echo a millennial sentiment—"adulting" in the workplace took time for me to work through and process. It was at one of these stressful lows that I was reminded of the advice to keep things in perspective.

As I start a family and have more responsibilities at home, keeping things in perspective helps keep work at work. Working hard and being successful professionally is a worthy goal, but never allow that to take away from other worthy obligations outside of the office.

4. Be low maintenance.

We’ve all worked with someone who earns the label of being high maintenance, and it's usually not a compliment. This reality makes the goal of being low maintenance in the work place a skillset we should seek to develop.

I didn’t fully understand the power of this advice until I started working full time. The ability to get work done without needing constant supervision is a strength I strive to develop each day.

5. Raise your hand.

Working at Ivanti, something you hear often is, raise your hand. Meaning, volunteer and ask to help on tasks and projects that interest you when help is needed -- make yourself available.

Following this advice, I have now been involved in several different projects within the marketing department since working here. This has helped me develop a variety of skills I didn’t have before working at Ivanti.