Companies around the globe are still offering many of their employees the opportunity to work remote in some form or fashion. But the work from anywhere model comes with its own set of challenges and problems that IT teams need to face and support. And the digital employee experience (DEX) is also becoming an important factor to address. ControlUp is one of the early pioneers to develop a DEX platform and their latest platform is providing comprehensive reporting on crucial productivity tools like MS Teams, Zoom, Slack, Azure and more.
To find out more, VMblog reached out to Yoni Avital, ControlUp
Co-founder and CPO.
VMblog: With companies around the globe using hybrid and
work-from-anywhere models, what problems do IT teams face supporting these
remote employees?
Yoni Avital: As today's remote,
hybrid, and work-from-anywhere trends continue to grow-IT teams are forced to
support IT dark zones when employees use disparate technologies as they work in
virtual office spaces, airport lounges, or their home offices. Help Desks are
expected to address problems remotely even with limited visibility into tools
and networks that were not designed to handle these work-from-anywhere models.
The virtual desktops and
applications companies set up to support their growing remote workforce pale in
comparison to in-house workstations and technology. The need to proactively
support team members and create a positive Digital Employee Experience is
great.
VMblog: As employees have the flexibility to work from
anywhere, what are some of the top problems they encounter, along with the IT
teams that support them?
Avital: Without the needed
visibility or tools to support work-from-anywhere employees, the hands of IT
departments are tied. The employee experience is less than desirable as team
members report lengthy logons, unreliable applications, challenging internet
connectivity, and interaction problems with unified communications tools (e.g.,
Slack, Teams, or Zoom).
Another issue we are
seeing is employees connecting to routers using Wi-Fi security protocols (WEP,
WPA, WPA2, etc.) that do not comply with corporate or governmental standards.
These less secure connections, if allowed through, have the possibility of
enabling data leakage and may present an attack vector for malicious code.
VMblog: Why is the digital employee experience so important
to the WFA workforce? How do the two complement each other?
Avital: As work has become more
digital, employees depend on technology to perform their jobs. When technology
works smoothly, employees are more productive and happy. But when technology
slows down or doesn't work well, bottlenecks are created while employee
productivity decreases and frustration grows. Today's digital workplace demands
a smooth experience, so employees interact and engage proficiently and
productively. So much so that Gartner reported that 24% of technology industry
employees consider DEX a top consideration when seeking employment. DEX is also
a critical contributor to hybrid workplace satisfaction.
A Digital Employee
Experience (DEX) strategy focuses on how well technology and supporting
applications contribute to the overall employee experience as interactions
occur with peers, customers, and vendors. Gartner has also reported that by
2025, more than 50% of IT organizations will use a DEX to prioritize and
measure success. To ensure an effective end-user experience, collecting
employee sentiment data will be used to drive improvements.
VMblog: What is the experience like today for companies that
aren't using a holistic approach to provide support for WFA workers?
Avital: With 65 percent of IT
service desks already experiencing heightened levels of stress and burnout,
increasing numbers of service desk tickets and the lack of visibility into
unified communications tools and SaaS applications are only making the problem
worse. To support and monitor outside services-e.g., Microsoft Teams, Zoom,
Azure Virtual Desktop, and SaaS applications-IT has been required to log into
multiple dashboards and pull in specific reports, which still does provide a
complete picture of what is happening. Accessing minute details about where and
why a problem exists so IT can proactively address it has not been possible
when using disparate systems. ControlUp provides a single unified view that
gives companies the ability to support workers regardless of where they are
working.
VMblog: How is ControlUp's DEX Management Platform solving
the problems IT teams are experiencing today as they try to support growing
remote and hybrid workforces?
Avital: ControlUp is one of the
first platforms to provide a holistic approach to unified communications, user
sentiment analysis, and advanced SaaS monitoring to help IT teams make smarter
decisions when supporting work-from-anywhere employees. ControlUp's expanded
solution now includes monitoring and optimization for:
- Unified
Communications: Provides usage
insights and the ability to pinpoint the root cause of problems employees
experience when they use mission-critical tools like Microsoft Teams.
- SaaS
and Web Applications: Gives
complete visibility into the performance and availability of SaaS applications
with proactive alerting so IT teams can get in front of issues before the
service desk phone starts ringing.
- User
Sentiment: Collects data about
how employees feel about their digital
experiences. This data allows IT teams to maximize their productivity and end
users' satisfaction while removing the need for additional survey tools.
- Microsoft
Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD):
Desktop as a Service (DaaS) platforms such as AVD are gaining in popularity,
but they can actually cost much more if they are not judiciously managed.
ControlUp has automated methods to minimize the cost. ControlUp provides its
award-winning real-time visibility into key metrics for one of the
fastest-growing segments in VDI- DaaS.
These expanded
capabilities reduce the cost of IT operations by examining the performance,
availability, and productivity of multiple, disconnected solutions in support
of industries-such as healthcare, insurance, retail, finance, and technology
companies-around the globe.
VMblog: What are IT teams saying about ControlUp's DEX
Management Platform solution?
Avital: ControlUp has been the
go-to solution for IT teams for over a decade. From its inception, ControlUp
has been laser-focused on ensuring that end users have the best user experience
possible. IT team managers see the value in ControlUp as it gives them
visibility into the overall health of an environment and helps them better
utilize resources. Administrators and support professionals see the value of
ControlUp as it allows them to isolate and remediate issues and proactively
prevent new issues quickly. This leads to a better digital experience for
end-users.
With ControlUp,
companies are meeting the needs of this changing world, as demonstrated by over 35 Gartner Peer InsightsTM reviews with an average of 4.8 stars. For example, a healthcare
industry IT team reported that ControlUp is an "almost magical piece of
software that has been quite critical in investigating and remediating various
scratch-your-head situations." A waste and sewer utilities IT team stated,
"ControlUp gives us control over what we were missing. Within a couple of
weeks of the agents being installed, we could see a number of issues with the
config of our image that a couple of tweaks resolved some major performance bottlenecks."
The ongoing list of
positive reviews says it all. Coupled with a recent Forrester Total Economic Impact Study that found a 238 percent ROI and a payback within the
first six months for customers who use ControlUp's platform-the results are
compelling.
VMblog: Why is monitoring unified communications, like MS
Teams, so important to IT organizations today?
Avital: Most organizations use
unified communications to empower employees to work effectively from any
location, which is critical for productivity and engagement in today's mobile
workforce. These tools foster team members' collaboration and keep file
sharing, messaging, and video conferencing organized. When the flow of
information is streamlined through a centralized management platform, real-time
communication between stakeholders is enabled, decision-making is strengthened,
and workflow efficiencies are improved.
Monitoring unified
communications helps to ensure that the performance of videos and calls is
seamless. Advanced alerts and automation triggers that are tailored to a
company's specific needs allow the IT team to target specific needs that are
important to the business. In turn, unified communications monitoring pinpoints
proactively the root cause of problems employees experience. Real-time tracking
helps to identify, troubleshoot, and remediate problems before they negatively
impact the employee's digital experience and productivity.
VMblog: How can VMware Horizon customers benefit from
ControlUp's DEX Management Platform?
Avital: VMware is a sophisticated
product that has many interrelated dependencies. If Horizon or any of the
products that it relies on has issues, it affects its overall performance.
ControlUp presents a unified view of a Horizon environment and its
dependencies. This holistic view allows issues to be solved quickly and
efficiently. Common Horizon issues can be solved programmatically, without
human interaction, through automation. The root cause of other issues can be
easily identified and often remediated directly from ControlUp.
Showing its commitment
to Horizon, ControlUp recently released our VMware vRealize Operations (vROps)
management pack (MP) to make integration of ControlUp easier. The ControlUp MP
is free and available through the VMware Marketplace.
VMware customers can buy
ControlUp directly from their VMware sales rep.
The ControlUp DEX
Platform helps IT teams make smarter decisions for the work-from-anywhere
experience employees demand today. By monitoring performance, availability
& productivity metrics, ControlUp delivers actionable insights that make
fixing and preventing issues easy.
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