For the IT industry, remote work and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) represent two of the most significant efficiency levers. Remote work alone can save companies over $11,000 per employee, and employees are even willing to take a pay cut to work remotely. Likewise, BYOD can save businesses 11% on their device spend and enable a better digital experience for the employees.
While other sectors may be limited by their technical expertise, the IT sector isn’t. And yet, technological and operational issues are key impediments to exploiting the above advantages of remote work and BYOD. How can the IT sector remediate these issues to achieve a win-win outcome for the organisation and its employees alike? Read on to find out how Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) can help the IT industry realise this vision.
The case for BYoD and remote work
Ever since the pandemic opened up the possibility of remote work, employees have seldom changed their sentiments when it comes to their preference. 65% prefer to work remotely all the time, and 57% would go job-hunting if their employer were to disallow remote work.
Likewise, BYOD use started gaining traction in 2021. Data shows that BYOD smartphones can save businesses over $340 per employee – which explains why 82% organisations now support them.
In addition to these cost-savings, BYOD and remote work also gel well together. BYOD saves device delivery costs and makes more sense as admins must manage all devices remotely for such workers.
The user’s perspective
BYOD and remote work also make sense from the user’s perspective. Remote work is preferred by employees, because they feel more productive when working remotely, and it saves them commute time. This makes room for a better work-life balance.
Similarly, BYOD enables employees to be productive from day one. It eliminates the friction that comes from switching to a different digital ecosystem. Moreover, employees prefer to get things done via mobile but prefer to keep one smartphone for both work and personal life.
Supporting BYOD and remote work in IT: key challenges
However, supporting remote work and BYOD comes with significant technical hurdles for IT organisations. Here are a few of them:
- Providing access to the client’s virtual desktops for remote users can prove difficult. Full-tunnel VPN connections do not work when using VDI.
- Power users must be able to access their office computers, but conventional solutions like VPN and legacy VDI stacks are either too expensive or insecure.
- Facilitating secure access to web apps for 3rd party or BYOD users proves highly expensive with SASE solutions.
- Employees may communicate with each other using personal lines, which can lead to non-compliance in regulated industries.
- BYOD users are sceptical about installing MDM software on their personal devices, and some express concern about the legal ramifications of breaches in such scenarios.6
The IT admin’s perspective
In addition to the above issues, BYOD and remote work are often dreaded by IT administrators. When businesses allow such policies, IT admins often resort to complex solutions, like registering the MAC addresses of user devices or using a complex stack to support access via remote networks or personal devices. Moreover, simple issues like password resets and the inability to support Linux or Mac users can keep administrators awake overnight, leaving them fatigued and exhausted. In such situations, plugging all the security gaps that arise in remote or BYOD scenarios proves difficult, exposing IT companies to security risks.
Making BYoD and remote work viable in IT with VDI
While complex workarounds can make remote work and BYOD viable for IT organisations, they can have a detrimental impact on the experience of both employees and IT administrators. This often detracts from the very value proposition that is sought from these levers.
However, the technology for powering a BYOD and remote-friendly workplace is now available to the IT industry. And that technology is desktop and application virtualisation, or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). In fact, IT administrators find VDI the most effective and low-touch solution for enabling secure remote access for BYOD users and is favoured by seasoned practitioners in the field.8
There are numerous reasons why VDI works better than alternative solutions for remote-first and BYOD-friendly workplaces. Here are some of them:
- VDI lowers the cost of ensuring security for remote users that connect to their personal computers in the office, or to the clients’ confidential resources. Alternative solutions like VPN tunnelling and SASE prove either too expensive or only partially compatible.
- Compared to dropshipping pre-configured or repaired machines through chain-of-custody, remotely servicing VDI-based desktop farms proves much more efficient. It is simpler for IT admins, and easier for users.
- With VDI, remote users can rest assured of their privacy. Instead of installing MDM software on their personal machines, BYOD users can simply be delivered virtual apps for secure access to client environments.
- VDI enables cost-effective isolation. It can help IT admins control what actions users take on client-provided machines and enable them to access web applications with virtual browsers.
- For IT organisations working with clients in highly regulated industries, VDI can promise highly controlled environments. With VDI, IT organisations can track every access request and user action, log these events, and create a closed-loop secure environment.
- Lastly, VDI can support multiple environments for BYOD users. It enables the organisation to make technology decisions independently of the device and OS environments of end-users. This interoperability ensures a uniform end-user experience while keeping IT overheads low.
In other words, VDI is the answer to the problems faced by end-users, IT administrators, and technology leaders when implementing BYOD or remote work policies in modern IT organisations. With virtualisation, the cost efficiency and operational benefits of remote work models are nearly guaranteed. While expensive solutions like SASE can subtract the financial benefits of remote work, VDI can retain this advantage while promising similar security outcomes. This makes VDI the perfect-fit solution for IT organisations looking to go remote-first or BYOD-friendly.
Accops VDI for IT and ITeS
Accops VDI is a suite of virtualisation solutions that enable the secure and cost-effective virtual app and desktop delivery in modern technology ecosystems. It is designed to work with all your existing enterprise technology solutions, and any vendor in your virtualisation stack (if you are currently using virtualisation at your organisation).
For the IT industry, Accops offers some differentiated capabilities. These include the ability to connect remote users securely to clients’ virtual networks or desktops or facilitate power users to securely connect to their in-office workstations. Moreover, Accops VDI can eliminate the rising complexity of modern VDI environments, by consolidating multiple vendors and simplifying billing, licensing, and subsequent management tasks for IT teams.
Moving forward
With modern VDI providers like Accops, IT organisations can deliver secure and delightful digital workspaces for their end-users at scale, without scaling their IT management overheads. Current research makes a strong case for supporting BYOD and remote work in modern technology companies. By adopting the right technical approach for enabling these paradigms, India’s IT industry can get leaps ahead of the competition and achieve a win-win outcome for its employees, clients, and financial stakeholders.
See how Accops VDI can help you shape this success by writing to us at contact@accops.com