Endpoints are multiplying across all organizations because of the mobile workforce, IoT and the digitization of business. IT has kept pace by expanding and growing its skill base in IOS, Android, Linux, Mac OS and of course Windows.
In large, this trend was caused by users and customers demanding their personal technology preferences be incorporated into the organizations they work for or interacted with. According to James McGovern, Research Director at Gartner, “Users demand innovative experiences with smart client-side technologies and new modes of interaction leading the charge.”
IT departments faced with this new endpoint complexity created specialty groups to deal with mobility, legacy applications, Windows devices, cloud and virtual systems. It was the fastest way to respond to demand but still maintain control.
What resulted was a fragmented endpoint infrastructure with technology managed in silos. More importantly, IT was focused on managing endpoints instead of a user experience.
To be successful today, IT needs to focus on delivering a consistent, intuitive experience to internal and external users across all of the endpoints they use.
This approach requires a shift by IT from being technology focused to user experience focused.
The outcomes now are not uptime (which is really a pay to play metric) or time to help desk ticket resolution. No, now the outcomes are user productivity and easy user self-service with users not having to call the help desk.
In the past, technology silos and device focused management were acceptable because teams did not have the tools to deliver a unified user experience. Today, that has changed with various endpoint management solutions available on the market.
Evaluate your endpoint management architecture not just by device, but by user roles, user expectations, app use, app criticality and security limits. Break down endpoint silos and make a system wide assessment of your endpoint inventory as it relates to users.
Looking at endpoints from a user perspective instead of a device perspective will allow you to unify the endpoint experience and deliver on organizational and user expectations.
