Embrace the new age with a powerful digital strategy

https://www.lanrex.com.au/blog/three-great-examples-of-it-strategy-and-one-surprising-one

So what are the characteristics of a digital workplace, and how can you implement them into your workforce to maximise the benefits for your money and your team. 

Strategy& (an arm of PwC) sums it up in just three words, in the title of its report, Designing the digital workplace. Connectivity, communication, collaboration. In other words, a digital workplace employs digital technology to ensure that those three functions are as seamless, efficient and easy to use as the technology permits.

Strategy& expands these three broad features into five elements, which make up the digital office framework:

1. Access Devices

2. Communications Infrastructure

3. Business Applications

4. The Workplace Environment, and

5. Digital Security

And make no mistake, a digital workplace is not merely a ‘nice to have’. It’s an essential precursor to success into today’s digitally disrupted business environment. 

As Strategy& says in its report, “Companies in every industry are facing real challenges in offering employees the best of the new technologies they need. But those that can see the strategic value of the working environment, and can get in front of the movement to the truly digital workplace, will have a clear advantage in productivity, innovation, and collaboration. That, in turn, will enable them to attract the talent they will need to stay competitive and to align with the social and business transformations taking place around the world.”

Closer to home and on a more down to earth level, Australian IT market research company Telsyte released in March its Australian Digital Workplace Study 2015. It covered “trends in business ICT spending and strategy and how IT and business leaders are preparing for the impact of emerging technologies.”

One trend stood out: as organisations move to create a digital workplace, a greater portion of IT expenditure will end up in the hands of business units. More than half of the 440 CIOs surveyed by Telsyte said they believe line of business IT spending will exceed central IT spending within five years. 

Telsyte reported that 79% of organisations have at least one line of business – including marketing, operations and finance – with its own IT budget.

“This is up five percent from 2014 and shows a growing demand for IT services from areas of the business like marketing,” Telsyte said. “Combine this with more accessible cloud-based applications and the CIO has another information management procurement channel to deal with.”

Jodie Korber, MD of Lanrex and Sydney-based Outsourced IT provider describes the importance of a properly managed Digital workplace; ‘The digital workplace is the virtual equivalent of the physical workplace, it is a system that needs to be planned and managed coherently as it is a fundamental feature of employees’ productivity, engagement and overall job satisfaction. Managers need to address the opportunity of a digital workplace as a whole coordinating it between technology, processes and most importantly its people.’