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Five Reasons Digital Employee Experience Management (DEX) Is Essential to Your Business

Wed, 13 Jul 2022 19:37:34 Z

Business objectives for IT management have fundamentally shifted. Traditionally, organizations imposed a heavy-hand over the types of IT resources their workers employ and how they will use them. However, over the past decade or so, a growing awareness has supplanted these antiquated approaches suggesting technology should conform to the needs of the workers, rather than the other way around. It turns out that when users are presented with devices, applications, and services they prefer to use, they are far more productive and enthusiastic about their relationship to the organizations. Of course, the only thing shocking about that epiphany is that it took so long for businesses to broadly recognize something so obvious.

To be fair, the availability of resources to assist organizations with managing user experiences is a fairly recent addition to IT management practices. Digital employee experience (DEX) management processes and tool evolved over the last decade or so specifically to monitor the workforce utilization of applications and devices and remediate any detected issues that inhibit their productivity. Management solution supporting DEX incorporate functionality from a variety of IT disciplines—including unified endpoint management (UEM), application performance management, and IT service management. Related solutions collect device and application performance information, survey users on their perspectives of IT services, intelligently identify the root cause of problems and improvement opportunities, and enable real-time automated remediation steps.

So, why are DEX solution so essential to modern business IT operations? DEX solutions maximize the value of IT investments by ensuring they align with actual user preferences and needs. While there are numerous benefits to this approach, the greatest value can be quantified in the following five areas.

1. Boosts workforce productivity

The most obvious benefit to DEX adoption is simply to enable workers to be more effective at completing their job tasks. Every time users are distracted by having to address tech issues, it can take them as much as 20 minutes to refocus back on the task. By eliminating unnecessary technology impediments, employees are able to better serve customers and more effectively deliver on business goals.

2. Supports hybrid workforces

With a majority of business tasks now being performed outside of the physical office, it is essential that hybrid teams have the same experiences utilizing IT services when they are remote as when at office. This includes expecting the same level of performance from web and SaaS applications, as well as the ability to operate fluidly over non-business networks, such as wi-fi and internet services, without delayed or dropped connections.

3. Reduces security risks

Yes, you read that correctly—the improvement of user experiences in the application of security protocols fundamentally reduces the number of breach events and policy violations. The reason is rather obvious when you think about it. When workers are presented with security that doesn’t inhibit their productivity, they are far less likely to bypass those controls to perform their job tasks. For instance, dissatisfied users may distribute sensitive data over unsecured channels, such as public email systems, or prevent the installation of critical security updates. Responsible DEX solutions reduce friction when accessing business resources and minimize impacts from security processes, such as patching and malware scanning.

4. Attracts and retain talent

Modern business workers are more tech-savvy than ever before with very particular opinions on the level of performance they expect to receive from company devices and applications. It is not uncommon for professionals to leave their employer out of frustration over the support they are receiving from offered IT services, and often these resignations occur unexpectedly, without warning. Similarly, many talented and knowledgeable workers are attracted to businesses with better IT implementations even if it means accepting a lower compensation rate.

5. Minimizes burdens on IT administrators

Mundane end user requests to resolve usability issues with devices and applications constitutes a significant portion of IT administrator time and efforts. According to EMA research, more than half of IT teams diagnose and resolve these challenges manually. DEX platforms utilize intelligent data collection and analysis in conjunction with automated remediation to identify and rapidly resolve root causes of the most frequently reported user experience issues. This frees up administrators to focus on providing business-focused IT improvements and on introducing new services. As a bonus, this simultaneously improves the job satisfaction rate of the administrators, as they can spend more time on interesting projects rather than firefighting minor day-to-day distractions.

To find out more about the current state of digital employee experience (DEX) on the global market explore our recent research report.

Five Key Identity Governance Features That Your Identity and Access Management Solution Does NOT Support

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 16:45:48 Z

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, identity management has taken center stage as the key enterprise security practice for enabling remote workforces while protecting company data and IT services. Though much of the media hype has focused on evolving technologies in enterprise identity and access management (IAM)—such as enabling passwordless and multifactor authentication—it is often overlooked that identity governance and administration (IGA) is experiencing its own renaissance not only due to pandemic-related access requirements, but also in support of recently-enacted compliance regulations, such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

To be clear, IGA encompasses all the processes for establishing policies, monitoring their status, and remediating any violations in regard to granting access to business IT resources, whether they are hosted on-premises or in the cloud. This is fundamentally different than IAM practices that perform the actual authentication and authorization processes for each individual application, system, or IT service. At a most basic level, it is easiest to think of IGA as centrally defining and orchestrating all the processes performed by one or more IAM solutions. While there is some feature crossover between commercially available IGA and IAM platforms, the two often operate best when working together through integration, and IAM alone lacks key functionality that is normally only available in an IGA solution. Listed here are five core features that are typically exclusive to IGA platforms that substantially improve access security effectiveness and an organization’s ability to meet regulatory compliance objectives.

Automated Onboarding – Day-to-day operations required for adding new users to a wide variety of IT services (both on-premises and in the cloud) is often time-consuming, error-prone, and inconsistent if performed by purely manual processes. By leveraging automation, organizations can grant access to predetermined IT resources based on specific user attributes, such as their job function (i.e., role), physical location, or work requirements.
User Self-Service – Today’s tech-savvy workforces generally prefer to perform access enablement tasks themselves and without having to interact with an IT support help desk. Self-service features included in IGA solutions enable users to initiate access requests, set/reset credentials (i.e., passwords), and perform approval tasks. As an added benefit, self-service capabilities reduce the management efforts of IT administrators, freeing them up to perform more critical tasks.
Orchestration of Certification Campaigns - Access to business IT services often must be approved by the designated owner of that service. IGA solutions initiate workflows that prompt stakeholders to evaluate access requests and identify issues, such as a segregation of duties violation. Solutions may also provide guidance on recommended actions or the level of risk associated with authorizing access.
Automated Offboarding – When a user is no longer associated with the business (such as following a termination), it is essential that all of the user’s access accounts are immediately disabled. Unfortunately, most organizations fail to keep track of all granted access across all local, web, SaaS, and business-hosted services, and many departed user accounts are simply forgotten about and left active indefinitely. With automated offboarding, ALL accounts associated with a user are simultaneously deactivated with a single action.
Continuous Auditing – Critical to meeting regulatory objectives is the ability to provide “proof of compliance.” Typically, this information is collected during periodic audits, which can be costly and time-consuming. Also, during periods between official audits, identity and access controls may drift from established requirements, causing the business to eventually fail a compliance audit and have to initiate reactive remediation. IGA solutions mitigate this problem by continuously monitoring policy enforcement processes across the identity and access ecosystem. Detected issues can then be proactively resolved in near-real time and before the execution of official audits.

Windows 10: One Year Later

Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:41:42 Z

Time flies when you’re upgrading operating systems. It has officially been a year since Microsoft introduced Windows 10 to much fanfare and approbation. Acceptance of the platform was almost immediate, with many users simply grateful to migrate away from the much-maligned Windows 8 environment. At the core of the problems with the previous edition of Microsoft’s flagship OS was that the GUI was designed to function more effectively on a tablet than on a PC, which infuriated users who had grown used to the Windows 7 look and feel on their laptops and desktops. The release of Windows 10 gave Microsoft’s core audience exactly what it wanted—a unified code base that enables the same applications to be employed on all device architectures (desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones) while retaining the look and feel of the classic Windows 7 desktop that they had come to appreciate.

Since its introduction, Windows 10 has become the most rapidly adopted PC operating systems, outpacing Windows 7 adoption rates by 140% (according to Microsoft). EMA research indicates that in the enterprise market Windows 10 now accounts for a full third of all Windows deployments, which is equivalent to the number of current Windows 7 deployments and roughly double the number of existing Windows 8 deployments (with the balance of PCs still relying on ancient Windows XP implementations). The rapid adoption rate in the PC market was broadly driven by Microsoft’s aggressive upgrade program that allowed Windows 7 and Windows 8 users to transition to the new platform for free through July 29 of this year. It is currently unknown if Microsoft will extend any additional upgrade incentives after that date.

Enterprise Windows 10 tablet adoption rates were proportionally even more dramatic, as roughly half of all Windows tablets used to perform business tasks are now running Windows 10. The majority of these deployments are newly purchased devices (rather than upgrades) and account for a 40% increase in overall Windows tablet adoption since the OS was introduced. While Apple iPads continue to dominate the enterprise tablet market, Windows 10 is helping Microsoft close the gap. In fact, EMA research data revealed that 10% of iPad market shares have been yielded to Windows devices in the last year—correlating directly with Windows 10 availability and adoption rates. While the lower purchase cost of Windows Surface tablets and Windows-based tablets offered by third-party vendors (e.g., Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba, etc.) is almost certainly a factor in the increased attractiveness of Windows tablets, the primary motivation for business adoption of the devices is the unified code base of Windows 10. Applications commonly employed on PCs can be simply installed on Windows 10 tablets without requiring any porting or recompiling processes.

Overall, users have been very satisfied with the Windows 10 environment on various devices, mostly because it emulates the positive usability experiences that had previously evolved for Windows 7. The use of tiles, which were first introduced with Windows 8, have still not achieved broad acceptance, but their presence in Windows 10 is unobtrusive and can be easily disregarded if preferred. The intelligent personal assistant, Cortana (introduced to compete directly with Google Now and Apple’s Siri), is popularly employed on mobile devices but largely lacks an audience among PC users. In fact, to reduce the performance impacts of Cortana, this feature is often disabled on enterprise PCs. Arguably, the only significant disapproval of Windows 10 involves the enforced operations of Windows Update. Users may defer the time of a patch or update installation, but they can no longer disable installations. For enterprise-used devices, this is actually a valuable asset to the business as it helps ensure security compliance and environment consistency across all supported devices, regardless of whether they are business-owned or employee-owned. However, users have found the intrusive updating sometimes impedes their productivity, particularly among PC users who are not used to yielding such control to fully automated processes.

For business work environments, the availability of Windows 10 has opened the door for the broad adoption of unified endpoint management (UEM) practices that have redefined how applications, data, and services are distributed across enterprise user devices. Rather than maintaining independent solutions for managing mobile and PC endpoints, the unified code base of Windows 10 allows organizations to employ a single set of consolidated process and tools to support all Windows-based user devices. This greatly simplifies and reduces administrative practices, making the platform even more attractive to the enterprise market.

As Microsoft blows out the candle on Windows 10’s first birthday cake, it can rest assured that the platform’s future looks bright. At least in the enterprise market space, Windows 10 can be expected to continue its aggressive PC migration trend while slowly chipping away at iOS and Android tablet market shares.

HEAT Software 1:1 iPad Education Program

Tue, 05 Jul 2016 19:03:27 Z

There is no greater investment we can make in the future than to prepare our children to successfully navigate the challenges of tomorrow. Of course, predicting the workforce requirements of the future is a bit like trying to capture a fly with a cargo net—just when you think you have it, it slips through the holes and buzzes in a different direction. Nonetheless, it’s safe to assume that workforce mobility will be an essential aspect of the coming generation’s career experiences. Mobile technology is already an integral part of nearly every business role, and its use can only be expected to increase in the years to come. To help support this revolution, Apple has pledged to donate $100 million worth of teaching and learning technology to 114 underserved schools across the country and has offered special discount pricing and volume-purchase programs to all educational institutions. A large number of grade schools have embraced these financial enticements and introduced 1:1 iPad programs that provide every student with their own personal iPad to be used during the duration of a school term.

Naturally, simply giving a student an iPad would do little to foster an academic atmosphere and would likely just result in increased downloads of Minecraft and Angry Birds. Careful thought should be placed into how best to deploy, secure, and utilize tablets before such a program is adopted. As a starting point, I highly recommend learning all about the SAMR model for introducing technology in education. This model defines the general processes that should be applied to all technology deployments in a classroom setting. Specific practices for iPad management and support that address each organization’s unique needs and teaching objectives should be adopted. While a comprehensive list of best practices for deploying a 1:1 iPad program would be too extensive for this modest blog, here are a few key tips that should be considered when developing a project plan:

Empower the Educators – One of the biggest pitfalls of introducing a 1:1 iPad program is trying to adapt the technology to existing lessons, rather than utilizing the technology to its fullest potential. The true value of iPads in the classroom is in their ability to customize lessons to match each teacher’s unique style. Educators can combine topics and lessons to essentially create their own textbooks, and audio, video, graphics, and web links can be added to enhance educational opportunities. Teachers must be trained on how to properly utilize the tablets and how to build lesson plans around them. Additionally, it is important for teachers to have access to tablets well before the start of the school term so they have sufficient time to develop digital classroom materials.
Deploy Applications Strategically – While there is an excessive amount of educational content available, not all of it is accurate and useful. All applications should be carefully vetted before being deployed to student device to ensure they are acceptable and appropriate to the lesson. Since student iPads should only be used for education purposes, approved applications should be explicitly white listed to prevent the installation of unapproved games and apps. Additionally, education software should be deployed to student iPads as it is needed, rather than all at once. This prevents networks and application servers from being overtaxed by hundreds of simultaneous downloads.
Optimize Data Sharing Practices – Used properly, mobile devices provide a powerful method for communication (i.e., student-to-teacher or student-to-student). Teachers can interact with students in real-time by answering questions and providing feedback on assignments as the student is focused on them. Students can revise and submit corrections on assignments to enhance their education experience. While email is an easy and popular method for sharing data (and can be done safely with a secure email package), it can be challenging for teachers to orchestrate. For instance, homework assignments will be sent from each student and may need to be collected in multiple phases of review. Organizing all these files in an email package is both challenging and time-consuming. A better approach is to enable secure data repositories for each student to store their assignments in a logical and organized manner.
Teach Safe Practices – Students’ familiarity with iPads and internet access varies by a great degree, and it should never be assumed that they intuitively understand safety practices. Even the use of malware protection and other security software while only have a limited affect if the students do not develop safe communication and web surfing habits. As technology continues to become an integral part of business and social interactions, this lesson will also extend to broader mobile device and computing use that will be invaluable throughout their lives.
Empower the Students – While security is of paramount importance in a 1:1 iPad program, it should not be implemented at the cost of stifling creativity and learning opportunities. Allow kids to customize their own devices to express their unique personalities. Encourage them to safely explore the capabilities of the technology and learn new ways to accomplish tasks. Offer multiple methods for completing assignments so they can discover which work best for them and allows them to develop the skills that will enable them to most effectively function in a technology-driven world.

Office 365: To Cloud or Not to Cloud—That IS the Question!

Fri, 19 Jun 2015 23:04:02 Z

It’s time to take a serious look at Office 365. The cloud edition of Microsoft’s broadly adopted business productivity suite – which bundles such popular packages as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Outlook – has been both heavily praised and heavily criticized since its introduction in 2011. While the adoption rate of the traditional software edition of Microsoft Office is currently in no danger of being overtaken by its cloud-hosted cousin, recent adoption rates for Office 365 have substantially accelerated. Businesses, in particular, have shown increased interest in the cloud-based platform, and many are carefully considering whether to make the transition after existing Enterprise Agreement (EA) licenses expire.

Currently, Microsoft offers a variety of licensing plans for both home and business users of Office 365. However, all Office 365 plansare based on subscription pricing models (i.e., per user per month or per user per year) as opposed to the one-time perpetual licenses offered with Microsoft Office. In November 2014, Microsoft introduced free versions of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel apps for iOS and Android platforms independent of Office 365; however, the licensing agreement for these apps states that they can only be used for “non-commercial purposes” (thoughI’m really not sure how that could possibly be enforced). Clearly these free mobile editions were made in direct response to the increasing popularity of Google Docs in that particular market. It should also be noted that Microsoft offers a free package of web-based apps, Office Online, which is a lobotomized version of Office and should be avoided at all costs to retain your sanity.

While Microsoft has promoted a number of reasons to adopt Office 365, in my opinion there are only two that really matter: to support enterprise mobility and to reduce costs. Here’s a summary of the benefits of both:

Supporting Enterprise Mobility – A single user license for Office 365 will support up to 5 devices of any type. So, users can employ any combination of PC and mobile devicesthat would enable them to be most productive whenever and wherever they need to read, create, and/or edit documents. Additionally, for its Office 365 customers, Microsoft offers free and unlimited access to its cloud storage solution, OneDrive. While users can still store data on their local devices, any files stored on OneDrive will be accessible by any other devices they use. OneDrive also enables files to be shared with coworkers or to create collaboration environments.
Reducing the Cost of Operations – With Office 365, license costs are substantially reduced for users who employ multiple devices. Unlike Microsoft Office, which requires individual licenses to be purchased for every device, Office 365 requires only a single license for up to 5 devices. Additionally, this subscription pricing is more conducive for organizations with fixed budgets (particularly SMBs) and can be substantially cheaper for supporting short-term projects (i.e., those lasting less than two years).

All organizations are different, and a number of factors will need to be considered when deciding if transitioning from locally installed software to a cloud-based solution is right for you. Some of the factors include organization size, industry type, user requirements, regulatory compliance goals, budget restrictions, and the breadth of available IT support. Detractors of Office 365 primarily raise concerns about reliability and performance. For instance, organizations with heavy security or regulatory compliance requirements may be restricted from using applications that host data in multi-tenant environments. Also, while Microsoft claims 99.9% uptime on the hosting environment, unreliable internet and LAN network connectivity could impact the performance of the platform. To be clear, while Office 365 does not require persistent connectivity (as it runs locally on each device), it still requires periodic contact with the cloud-hosted environment and, of course, it is necessary for accessing any files stored on OneDrive. Synchronization issues with Outlook and SharePoint have also been frequently noted by users as challenges to the platforms reliability.

Organizations that do decide to make the leap to adopting Office 365 should be prepared to carefully manage the various licenses adopted for each user. For instance, since each user can assign their license to up to five devices, it is possible that multiple licenses could be assigned to a single device, which is obviously not cost-effective. Additionally, it’s important to know the type of license employed by each user, the length of the license term (monthly or annually), and when the term expires to prevent the business from being charged for any software that is no longer being used.

Taking all these pros and cons into consideration along with your own unique business requirements (and a measure of common sense) should provide ideal guidance on whether it’s time to transition to Office 365. One final note: Don’t be afraid of the cloud simply for fear of change. Cloud-hosted services are neither the ultimate solution nor the ultimate challenge. They simply represent another technology approach to be evaluated – another tool in the belt to be employed when it makes the most sense for your organization.

Is Your Organization Ready for Windows 10?

Fri, 05 Jun 2015 20:46:58 Z

Here we go again. New releases of Microsoft’s flagship operating system are typically greeted with a combination of angst, curiosity, confusion, and dread in equal measure. It seems just as folks have gotten used to a particular Microsoft version, a new one is released with a completely different interface and requiring a whole new set of operational practices. Even worse, upgrading large numbers of desktops to the new edition in a large enterprise environment is a daunting task often avoided by IT operations teams until and unless it is absolutely necessary to perform a mass migration. More often, new OS platform adoption occurs due to device attrition (i.e., replacing old devices hosting old OS versions with new devices hosting the new OS version). The upcoming, late-July release of Windows 10 will likely be no exception to this.

Beyond natural device circulation, however, there are still compelling reasons to migrate to Windows 10 – usability being the most critical. Just as the initial adoption driver for Windows 7 was to get users off of Windows Vista, organizations that adopt Windows 10 early will principally do so to free their users from the challenges of Windows 8. In fact, while the Live Tiles interface has been retained, Windows 10 has a look and feel more akin toWindows 7 than Windows 8. Interface features like the traditional Start Menu and Taskbar have been reintroduced while the much reviled Charms menu has been retired. Perhaps the most important feature of Windows 10, however, is its ability to port applications from other environments (e.g., Linux, iOS, Android). This is particularly advantageous for mobile editions of Windows 10, as previous versions broadly lacked availability of key applications.

It should also be noted that roughly 15% of organizations still rely on the retired Windows XP OS to perform critical business tasks. XP was released way back in 2001 – when a “mobile device” referred to little more than a pen and paper. It is long past time to abandon XP, and, for many organizations, the release of Windows 10 provides the best opportunity to finally do so.

While Windows 10 was designed to unify the OS architecture across devices (i.e., to support common apps), Microsoft is actually releasing seven different versions of the platform: Home edition, Enterprise edition, Professional edition, Education edition, Mobile edition, Mobile Enterprise edition, and an Internet of Things (IOT) Core edition. The much-maligned Windows RT tablet environment has been retired. For existing Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 systems, the Windows 10 Home and Professional editions will be available as a free upgrade for one year, providing a strong incentive for early adoption.

Of course, the biggest challenge for organizations is to reliably transition a large number of PCs and mobile devices with minimal impact on business productivity. While Microsoft offers a migration tool for Windows 7 and Window 8 devices, Windows XP and Vista devices will require a full system installation. Either way, manually performing OS migrations on hundreds, thousands, or even millions of devices is simply not practical or cost-effective for most organizations. A much more effective approach is to adopt an automated OS deployment and migration solution that enables the centralized scheduling, configuration, and implementation of Windows 10 editions. Key features to look for when evaluating available solutions include:

Asset Management – Preparation for migration begins with a deep understanding of enterprise resources and requirements, so a full inventory of the support stack is essential and should include both hardware assets (e.g., system model, CPU, memory, devices, peripherals, etc.) and software assets (e.g., applications, drivers, and system tools). This information will be used to establish a baseline for identifying issues that will need to be addressed during the migration, and it helps prioritize which system, service, and task deployment activities should be performed first.
Role-Based Management – User profiles identifying permissions and configurations are grouped based on the user’s job function (e.g., accountants, marketing reps, IT support staff, etc.). Ideally, these user roles are imported for an enterprise IT listing service, such as Active Directory or LDAP, to ensure consistency across the enterprise.
Centralized System Packaging – With this feature, all OS, application, driver, and patch elements are packaged (as either a bundled deployment or an image) in order to meet specific requirements for the endpoint. Additionally, any configuration requirements (such as usage preferences and security settings) should be automated and included in a deployment package.
Deployment Multicasting and Scheduling – Multicasting allows multiple systems to be migrated simultaneously. While it is fast, this approach may also saturate a network that is also used to support production services. With deployment scheduling, migrations can be initiated during low-use hours (e.g., evenings and weekends) or can be spread out to minimize impacts to the network.
Reboot Management – Some OS, application, driver, and patch installation processes require a system restart to complete. With reboot management, solutions can ensure implementations are automatically tracked and managed through each phase of the installation without requiring administrator interaction.
Migration Process Monitoring – With a broad number of deployments happening simultaneously, it’s easy to overlook critical installation and configuration failures. The quicker migration difficulties are identified, the faster they can be remediated, reducing the number of occurrences of similar problems on other endpoints in the migration schedule.

With the proper automated migration tools in place, transitioning to Windows 10 can be eagerly embraced, rather than dreaded. The new OS’s improved application availability and standardized user interface across all devices will only increase user productivity while simplifying IT management. With change, there is always apprehension. But if wielded correctly, strategically planned change can provide a competitive edge at a time when both markets and organizational requirements are rapidly changing.