In my previous blog, I wrote that employees these days are hungry for a more dynamic, collaborative workplace experience, one that provides pervasive access to productivity tools so they can work wherever they choose. (See also my post Want to Drive Innovation and Profitability? Create a Great Employee Experience.) Next, we need to consider that work activities flow across not only different workspaces, but also different systems and devices. One minute you need some private office space and a bit of peace and quiet to hammer out a spreadsheet on a PC. Next minute you’re in a conference room using your laptop to practice delivery of a presentation and getting feedback from a group of colleagues. Then you’re back at your desk, doing some brainstorming and virtual whiteboarding with a couple of co-workers in a different time zone.
Given this multiplicity of social contexts, devices and spaces in the modern enterprise, the question naturally arises: What kind of productivity tools can we provide for employees that not only address the full range of activities, but do so in a manner that’s seamless, intuitive, and natural to the way humans work?
The modern work environment: changing to match our own evolution.
Most work environments today don’t have a good answer to that question. For many employees, working with colleagues is disjointed because the collaboration tools function separately from each other. Each tool has its its own identification and access requirements, its own user interface, its own education and training requirements.
This is where HPE’s partnership with Microsoft comes in. We’ve chosen to move forward with Microsoft 365 because we believe it provides the most comprehensive set of productivity technologies on the market today. It encompasses the entire range of activities that a typical modern employee engages in, from email to collaborative whiteboarding, and from document sharing to video chat/conferencing.
With a single integrated suite, you need just one username and one password for all productivity activities. The user interface and user experience is the same across all tools, on one intuitive platform. You don’t need separate training programs for each tool – which is easier for employees, and potentially a cost saver for employers as well.
Increasing collaboration ease- because we’re now in different time zones, work settings, and electronic devices.
Another powerful dimension of Microsoft 365 is what I call intelligent collaboration. Microsoft has already integrated machine learning capabilities into Teams, a chat-based teamwork hub that’s part of Microsoft 365. The company is working hard to bring AI capabilities into the entire collaboration sphere of the modern enterprise.
That opens some very exciting future possibilities. Virtual assistants could take on many of the tedious tasks we all have to do as part of our everyday jobs, such calendaring. Think how much effort it takes to schedule a group of four or five people for a meeting (something I do a lot, so I know how annoying it can be!) How cool would it be if I could just speak into your laptop and say, "Cortana, schedule a meeting with Charlie, Amy, and Joanne for an hour next Wednesday." A virtual assistant would then access their calendars, figure out the best time, and send out the invites, perhaps even including the minutes from the previous meeting as an attachment.
Or imagine you’re working on a document, say a presentation slide deck, at the global level of your enterprise, and, unknown to you, a colleague halfway across the world is working on a similar thread as part of a regional presentation. There could be a lot of overlap and synergies, but normally you’d never know it unless you happened to be in contact with that co-worker. But what if the productivity tool itself could make the necessary connections? What if it could say, “Hey, did you know Jessica Harvey in New Zealand is working on something very similar? Perhaps you should contact her and find out what she’s thinking.”
Security is evolving as quickly as data is growing.
Then there’s intelligent security. Let’s say you work in the finance department, and you’re within the statutory quiet period, a couple of weeks away from releasing your financial statements to Wall Street. You write an email to which you inadvertently attach a sensitive document that has limited shareability during the quiet period. Ordinarily that could be a serious mistake, but imagine if an AI within Outlook could detect the potential error and flag it: "Are you sure you want to send? Quiet period currently in effect: are you sure you want to share this document?" The technology itself is working to keep you safe.
Are you ready to make an update?
HPE Pointnext can help you design and build the kind of people-based, activity-based workplace that best supports your business. It starts with unified, seamless collaboration that enables employees to achieve their best productivity anywhere, anytime, from any device. From there, enterprise collaboration itself can start to become smarter, as AI connects people in exciting new ways that we’re just starting to explore.
Read more about how HPE Pointnext is changing the way companies think about the workplace with intelligent spaces.
Meet us in Vegas
Want to learn more, in person? At HPE Discover, I’ll be presenting on this topic Tuesday, June 19th from 4:30pm -5:30pm. Register for “How to build richer digital workplace experiences at the Intelligent Edge” now.
Related Sessions and Demos:
- Session DF5066: Productive collaboration at the Intelligent Edge. Collaboration in the workplace is increasingly digital and encompasses many channels we could never have imagined. The introduction of a truly integrated digital collaboration environment with Microsoft Office has been expanded to include Windows 10 with Microsoft 365. Learn how HPE Pointnext has helped organizations be productive digital collaborators and how this can be further enhanced at the Intelligent Edge.
- Demo1106: HPE Intelligent Workspaces: The smarter digital workplace. Experience a modern, innovative, IoT-enabled digital workplace. Engage visitors and employees in new ways with guest registration, auto-WiFi onboarding and our employee mobile app. Find desking, meeting and collaboration workspaces using location services and dynamic reservation technologies. Engage in Microsoft 365-based collaboration. Finally, experience smarter conference spaces with dynamic occupancy sensing, multi-device wireless display sharing and IoT room control.
Aviviere_Telang
Global Solution Strategist
