If digital transformation was not on your agenda before the Covid-19 pandemic, it almost certainly is now. One thing we have learnt is that agility is key and becoming a digital business is now essential to success.

However, with so much talk around digital transformation, it can be extremely confusing knowing where to begin, the best approach to take and even understanding what the end goal is. Every journey is different and will represent a unique set of challenges. So how can you ensure your digital transformation journey is a success to reap the regards of digital change?

Our guide outlines the five steps to becoming a digital business including how to:

• Understand what it means to be a digital business.
• Identify transformation goals
• Monetise your digital product or service
• Understand and mitigate barriers or concerns
• Implement best practise

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Remote working is no longer a short-term solution to working under Covid-19 regulations. Your IT team is now tasked with ensuring the long-term success of the dispersed workforce as your business embraces permanent remote or hybrid working.

But maintaining the simplicity, standardisation and security experienced in the centralised office environment can be challenging in a remote environment. You need a modern solution that can provide the high-performance needed for the modern workforce and one that can remove the complexity from managing and scaling IT for remote workers.

This guide will explain how a best-in-class cloud-based VDI solution, like Pulsant Cloud Desktop, can remove the risk and complexity associated with IT management and maintenance of a dispersed workforce, helping your team to succeed in this new working environment, whilst enabling a high-performance workforce. In particular, it will cover the following factors:

• Simplify: How to simplify management and maintenance of dispersed workgroups
• Standardise: How to deliver a consistent experience across multiple devices and locations
• Secure: How to maintain security, compliance and business continuity outside of the office environment
• Succeed: How to guarantee a high-performance dispersed workforce where staff can work remotely without limits

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An aim of organisations across industries during the remote working era has been to ensure that their employees can provide the same level of output and consistent quality of work that was previously possible in the office. Research by Mercer found that 94% of 800 employers reported the same or higher level of productivity than before the pandemic, even with employees working remotely. While this evidence shows that employees can successfully make the shift, the responsibility sits with the employer to ensure that the tools are available to enable this productivity.

Employee expectations

Younger people entering the workforce today are increasingly unlikely to remember a time where others were not instantly reachable, creating certain expectations that employers should provide the right communications technology, whether in or out of the office. Employees are now expecting a consistent desktop performance and true accessibility, regardless of the device used and where they are based.

But for in-house IT teams, it isn’t always so simple to provide this experience. Ensuring that desktops are fully up to date can be a time-consuming and costly challenge, in addition to the user support and ongoing maintenance of servers and storage that needs to be provided. This management of hardware and software compatibility can prove overwhelming, leading to difficulties with prioritising IT fixes and leading to inconsistent employee experiences.

 Traditional VDI solutions

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a technology that has been available for some time and allows a managed desktop solution to be provided to employees. Legacy VDI solutions are however fraught with issues, such as being incompatible with applications and delivering a slow and inconsistent user experience via a lookalike operating system.

While VDI has come along way in recent years, such as modern cloud-based solutions, it still requires the specialist knowledge and resources of an in-house IT team to ensure it is fully consistent and readily available for each employee. With this in mind, how can businesses best utilise a VDI solution to provide that all-important employee experience on a consistent basis? Pulsant Cloud Desktop is the modern VDI that can address these challenges.

 Enabling consistency

In leveraging trusted Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops technology, Pulsant Cloud Desktop performs all processing in the data centre, ensuring a consistent level of performance for every user, even in the case of a low-spec or outdated device. Users also benefit from use of native Windows 10 and single sign-on capabilities, ensuring that they can access their work tools quickly and efficiently.

Looking at the case of commercial law firm Teacher Stern, the organisation required a new IT infrastructure to replace its ageing solution, and worked closely with Pulsant to integrate a remote desktop solution that was delivered via Pulsant Enterprise Cloud. The enhanced connectivity that resulted from the arrangement allowed fee earners quick uninterrupted access to systems and applications from any device.

Looking to find out more on how to ensure a consistent experience for your dispersed workforce? Download our guide: “Optimising IT for Remote Workers with Cloud-Based VDI”

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While the rapid rollout of the vaccination programme has provided hope of a return to a pre-2020 world, the move to remote working due to the Covid-19 pandemic will be a mainstay for many organisations. In fact, 98% of people want to work from home for at least part of their working week for the remainder of their careers, according to a survey by the World Economic Forum. But to continue with a long-term strategy of a dispersed workforce in place and to reap the benefits it brings, businesses need to fully optimise the management and maintenance of their desktop platforms to support their employees.

In-house challenges

Deployment, configuration and management of desktop solutions can be a complex process, with considerations such as patch management, user support, updates and minimising latency between applications based in the data centre. Not only that, but the resultant ongoing maintenance of networking, storage and servers can prove to be an overwhelming responsibility for in-house IT teams. 45% of IT professionals who leave the industry do so because of stress, undoubtedly exacerbated by the pressures associated with the pandemic.

So what are the options on the table to help ease the burden on IT professionals while continuing to support the dispersed workforce? There are plenty of cloud desktop solutions on the market that can ease some of the burden, such as hosting a desktop solution with Azure, but this still involves comprehensive in-house management of the technology and specialist knowledge to ensure that it is fully optimised, which is where a managed Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solution comes in.

The benefits of a managed solution

Opting for a managed solution with a service provider means that IT teams don’t have to worry about rack space, hardware breakdown or maintenance. Pulsant’s Cloud Desktop, in conjunction with Citrix technology, allows centralised management of the VDI platform, from configuration of the operating system to flexibility to easily scale up down depending on the number of users.

For organisations utilising a BYOD policy for remote employees, the solution is compatible with all major mobile OS systems and ensures a consistent user interface across each device, while users benefit from faster and more reliable access to applications with guaranteed availability SLAs and enhanced performance.

Security has moved to the forefront of IT teams’ concerns with workplace devices now being managed remotely. At the outset of the pandemic, 52% of organisations determined that they were only somewhat prepared in terms of security resource when making the shift to remote working. Pulsant Cloud Desktop ensures unnecessary security risks are mitigated and compliance across the workforce is maintained with a secure-by-design VDI, while the service is ISO 27001 accredited and UK-based.

Management and maintenance of the dispersed workforce can be a minefield, but Pulsant Cloud Desktop removes the risk and complexity that could otherwise result from an in-house strategy. Discover more in our comprehensive guide: “Optimising IT for Remote Workers with Cloud-Based VDI”

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Enabling a high performance dispersed workforce

While Covid-19 has forced businesses to adapt to remote work, it is no longer seen as just a short term fix to helping businesses navigate the pandemic. Many organisations are now choosing to keep their remote working policies in place permanently or are moving to hybrid working models where employees can work flexibly between home and the office.

How businesses manage their IT will need to change to accommodate these new working models. One of the biggest factors IT teams need to consider is enabling high performance across the business. Performance across the dispersed workforce can be a significant challenge, with users in different roles requiring different levels of compute power and access to applications that are unique to their requirements.

A Cloud Desktop, also known as a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) or Desktop as a Service (DaaS) can help the IT team solve the performance challenges a business might face with remote or hybrid working. It does this by delivering virtual desktops and applications from the cloud on any company device in any location.

Improving performance with dedicated virtual machines

A typical Cloud Desktop helps to ensure high performance from the dispersed workforce by allowing users to access virtual desktops, applications and files. However, it is important to choose a solution that provides dedicated virtual machines for each user rather than users having to share. When users share virtual machines, the performance of one user’s desktop might be negatively impacted by other users demanding more computing power. Dedicated virtual machines ensure each user has enough computing power to perform their role uninhibited by technology issues.

Scaling up for more intensive user demands

Importantly, having dedicated virtual machines means there are no hardware upgrades required when a user needs to use a new application or their requirements call for a higher performance machine.  Virtual machines can be scaled up easily as and when they’re required, eliminating any delays in users being able to use the applications they need when they lack computing power. This also reduces the chances of the applications running inefficiently.

Reducing latency between desktops and applications

When it comes to running applications virtually, users can experience latency between the servers that are running their desktops and the servers running their applications. A Cloud Desktop solution that hosts the desktop infrastructure and applications in the same data centre can reduce this latency as traffic between the virtual desktop and applications take place inside the data centre and not through the connection between the data centre and the user’s device. This improves application responsiveness and leads to better overall performance.

Consistent performance with Pulsant Cloud Desktop

For many organisations, remote work is the future. Virtual desktops are the future of remote work and Pulsant Cloud Desktop removes the risk and complexity associated with managing a dispersed workforce by simplifying deployment, management and maintenance of multiple devices and remote workers through cloud-based VDI.

Find out more about how Pulsant Cloud Desktop can help your IT team simplify, standardise and secure IT in the dispersed workplace by reading our guide, “Optimising IT for Remote Workers with Cloud-Based VDI”.

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Maidenhead, UK – 22nd February 2021 – Pulsant, a leading IT infrastructure services provider with a core focus on colocation, cloud and networking, has announced two new appointments to its Executive Leadership team.

Guy Daniels has assumed the position of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) after joining the company as Interim CMO in September 2020, while April Clark has been promoted to Chief People Officer (CPO) from her role as HR Director.

As CMO, Daniels is responsible for leading Pulsant’s brand and marketing strategy, ensuring the company is positioned strongly to capitalise on the growing demand for digital transformation and edge computing through its national network of data centres and cloud platforms. Daniels’ appointment adds to significant investments Pulsant has made into its sales and marketing capabilities during the last 12 months.

Daniels has more than 30 years’ experience in technology marketing, including positions at IBM and Sony. Before joining Pulsant, Daniels held a number of senior roles in prominent technology companies, including Vice President of Corporate Marketing for Cognizant Technology Services Europe and Vice President Brand and Marketing Communications for Fujitsu International.

“As a permanent member of the Pulsant team, I look forward to building a unique and compelling brand which reflects the clarity of our strategy to the market and helping achieve our growth potential over the coming years. It’s an exciting time for the business, with the company well-positioned to help organisations navigate digital disruption. Most of all, I am genuinely proud to be part of such a high-quality leadership team,” comments Daniels.

As CPO, Clark will lead the strategic and operational delivery of Pulsant’s people, culture and values, ensuring access to, and retention of, the best talent to support Pulsant’s growth and future success. Clark joined Pulsant in 2006 following a role in the HR team at John Menzies Group. Over the past 15 years, she has been instrumental in establishing a strong company culture and has led the successful integration of teams following multiple acquisitions.

“I’m excited to take this next step in my career at Pulsant. The events of the last 12 months have really emphasised the importance of our people to our ongoing success. We’ve continued to thrive despite the pandemic because of our focus on supporting and developing our team. As we look to the future, it will be this emphasis on people, culture and values that will enable us to continue to attract and retain the best people to help us reach our growth potential,” comments Clark.

Rob Coupland, Pulsant CEO, adds: “Both Guy and April bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to Pulsant and their appointments will significantly strengthen our Executive Leadership team and ensure we are positioned for future success. Guy has already made a huge impact on the business and his permanent appointment supports the wider investments we are making in our go-to-market capability to address the opportunity posed by digital transformation and the emerging edge computing opportunity.

“Since joining Pulsant, I have been impressed by the industry-leading best practice April has embedded in Pulsant’s HR agenda over many years and her appointment to CPO reflects the strategically important role our people play in our success as a company.”

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