Iโm seeing tremendous, growing interest in solutions that help companies build a modern digital workplace. In a recent customer event, I was surprised to see standing-room only for our session on โCreating a Smarter Digital Workplace.โ This is indicative of the tremendous interest in solutions that help companies modernize their workplace.
Why the surge in interest? I think itโs because businesses have arrived at two major realizations:
1. They need to modernize to build competitive differentiation in the talent market. Companies are increasingly realizing that competing for great hires within their vertical means delivering the best technology experience to employees. Employees are very sensitive to the quality of the technology thatโs available to them in the workplace. In their consumer lives, theyโre used to having all the services and functionality they need at their fingertips โ everything from ordering a pizza to talking via video with a friend halfway around the globe. Too often, when they cross the threshold into the workplace, it can feel like theyโre taking a big step backwards. That doesnโt do much to bolster the perception of the company as an organization that fosters growth and innovation.
In addition, employees now work much more collaboratively than they did in the past, often in cross-functional teams. That collaboration fuels creative energy, which in turn fuels innovation. Itโs much harder to achieve that in a work environment where the technology is lagging.
2. Building a modern digital workplace involves some serious complexity. At many companies, the natural instinct is to jump feet-first into the technology components: โOK, we need to figure out connectivity," or, "we need to review productivity tools," or analytics or AI or whatever. โLet's short-list the vendors and find out all about their speeds and feeds and features, and then weโll do some pilots.โ
But what companies are quickly finding out is that the industry is too vast, and the technologies too varied and siloed, for this approach to work well. No vendor in the market has a complete end-to-end solution, and there are many providers for any given set of capabilities. Within a specific segment like dynamic space booking, for example, there are probably six or seven players. And for the sector as a whole, more vendors are popping up all the time, all with different price points and different capabilities.
Employees first
At HPE Pointnext, we believe that the best starting point for a digital workplace transformation is not the technology platforms โ itโs the employees. Understanding employeesโ wants, needs and pain points gives you the best foundation for designing that differentiated workplace experience; the technology decisions flow from that. We've used this approach with great success for many customers (and recently for our own workplaces โ see Antonio Neri at the inauguration of the new HPE Headquarter building in San Jose, CA, as he launches the HPE Pointnext โIntelligent Workplaceโ app on his phone.)
Now we've taken the next step and curated the expertise to create that best-of-breed employee experience, as well as the best-of-breed technologies needed to build it, into a single package: HPE GreenLake Intelligent Workplace Lighthouse Program. This breakthrough program delivers our HPE Intelligent Workplace Solution in a consumption-based, pay-as-you-grow model.
Frictionless productivity
HPE GreenLake Intelligent Workplace Lighthouse Program provides a comprehensive, best-in-class hardware, software and services package that works seamlessly and intuitively to eliminate many of the friction points that test employeesโ patience and hinder productivity. Key employee services are integrated and presented via a mobile app, the HPE myWorkplace Employee App. For example, in todayโs dynamic spaces employees need an easy way to find colleagues: โWhereโs Charlie sitting today? Heโs not at his usual desk?โ The solutionโs wayfinding and indoor location services can help you find him, via our myWorkplace Employee App.
You want to book a space, but youโre not sure whatโs available? With dynamic room scheduling and desk scheduling, itโs right there on your phone. The system dynamically updates room occupancy status in real-time. Or you want to report that some equipment isnโt working โ the remote in the meeting room 34A is broken. You can quickly and easily post a report through the app so facilities can take care of it, and the room doesnโt sit around unused for two or three weeks.
Or letโs say youโve got a visitor coming to the building โ a supplier, contractor, partner alliance manager โ for a project youโre collaborating on. Youโll want to get them onboarded into the building services with guest WiFi. Usually a tedious task, but digital visitor management automates it so that your visitor can become productive as quickly as possible.
Turnkey support and change management
HPE GreenLake Intelligent Workplace Lighthouse Program removes the typical headaches around standing up the infrastructure, sorting out the software licensing, and doing design-and-deploy for the entire solution. From the employeesโ point of view, it presents digital workplace capabilities as an integrated, cohesive whole. They donโt end up with a bunch of different apps from the various vendors behind the solution and having to constantly hop from one to another to get anything done.
In addition, the solution takes the burden of support off your shoulders. Itโs one thing to integrate six or seven different vendorsโ systems to meet your requirements and deliver an exceptional experience, but itโs another thing again to make sure that everything keeps running smoothly and delivering optimal performance. HPE handles that, so you donโt have to worry about having the right expertise and staff availability to support each of the components and the solution as a whole.
That said, moving from a static, traditional workplace to a more open, dynamic environment often involves a big change in employeesโ work styles. HPE GreenLake Intelligent Workplace Lighthouse Program provides rigorous change management as well as up-skill training, both for users of the solution and for the admins responsible for its day-to-day management. Everyone is up and running faster and easier, you minimize frustration, and you increase adoption of the new technology.
Cloud-like economics
In a nutshell, HPE GreenLake Intelligent Workplace Lighthouse Program lets you:
- Empower employees to be more productive by connecting them to spaces, amenities and colleagues.
- Engage employees with interactions relevant to their real-time location and activity.
- Enable evidence-based management of workspaces through enhanced data and analytics.
- Reduce operational overhead through a curated set of best-of-breed technologies delivered on a flexible integration platform.
- Streamline ongoing implementation and support costs with a consumption model. HPE GreenLake Intelligent Workplace Lighthouse Program simplifies the financial aspects of workplace modernization. You get a single monthly bill to cover the hardware, software and expertise. And just like you can with cloud, you can very quickly add capacity when you need it or reduce it when you donโt.
Read more HPE Intelligent Workplace Solution here, and keep an eye open for my next post, where Iโll cover some of the key learnings and recommendations from HPEโs own journey to a smarter digital workplace.
My Related Posts:
- Want to Drive Innovation and Profitability? Create a Great Employee Experience
- Redefining the Workplace with Secure, Pervasive Access
- The Activity-Based Workplace: Productivity Anywhere, Anytime, from Any Device
- Building a More Engaging and Efficient Workplace: The Physical-Digital Meld
- The Analytics-Based Workplace: Turning Data into Continuous Innovation
And check out my YouTube interview:
Aviviere_Telang
Global Solution Strategist
