We sat down with Joe to discuss why businesses and organizations of all sizes need to take care of their digital work environment, how they should get started, and most importantly, what they shouldn't do.
Check out our conversation here and get in touch if you have any questions.
How would you describe a modern digital workplace?
A modern digital workplace brings together information that is localized to the specific needs of people in an organization. For example, organizations have units. They have pakistan b2b leads departments, they have divisions, they have locations. So the content that they get and the services that they receive need to be in context with those units that they reside in.
They can also consume common services like HR and benefits, or purchase and acquire common services that are available. The digital workplace brings all of these things together for that person, in the context of the units that they're in. So if you have news calendars and communities and forms and alerts, you should be able to see those from your department.
If you're part of the company's leadership, you should have KPI dashboards that show you the things you care about from all kinds of important sources and aggregated specifically for you. That way, when you wake up, you can see what's going on. You can see what you should be paying attention to, and you can access the services and apps you need to take action.
A digital workplace can be as simple as using Slack or as complex as a full-fledged digital environment. What would you say are the main components, in your opinion, of a good digital workplace? What should the organization achieve through it?
The key components of a good digital workplace... They go back to the digitization of content and access to applications. You have to be able to find people to collaborate with.
We call it “expert discovery.” You should be able to find subject matter experts on various topics in your organization, and you should be able to reach them through text and instant messaging. And you should be able to say, “I have a problem, I need help.”
So localization of experts is critical. Custom content is critical. Dashboards, knowledge dashboards with KPIs are critical. And as I said before, that content is delivered in a personalized way based on the units that you live in within your organization. And you should have access to common services.
Finally, you should have access to unused services that exist on other drives.
Many organizations and companies want to solve the need for digital work environment with OOTB solutions. Do you think companies should consider adaptation or digital work environment solutions to work better?
I believe that complex and larger organizations need to adapt to who they are, how they are structured, and how people work. An out-of-the-box solution may work for a small organization that needs common policies, procedures, forms, and services.
In small organizations, you can incorporate collaboration tool sets, but collaboration in larger organizations is completely different. And as I said before, I think it's based on "localization of expertise." I think it's focused on the ability to find someone to solve your problem. It's not focused on social interaction.
How important are digital workplaces today?
You have to think about it on two levels. The first is what we've been talking about: access to information at a distance. Because everything I've talked about so far means that information is available to an individual at his fingertips, no matter where he is, and if possible, working with others at a distance. That's very important.
The second level is the zero-trust model. That means the digital workplace is critical to helping people move from accessing applications and content through your network to accessing those applications and content through the cloud. What that means is you're reducing the vulnerability and access controls that you have in place on your network.
Big companies have these big networks with firewalls and security around them. And you have to have an ID, access the network, and then you have access to the applications. That creates vulnerabilities because once someone hacks the network, they have access to the applications.
With the zero-trust model and a cloud-based model tied to a digital workplace, that doesn't happen. They can steal your ID, but they can't access anything beyond that digital workplace. They can't access the applications. So it has two parts: Content and applications done in a zero-trust model. I think those two are key elements of a digital workplace, what's important and why you want to have one.
