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Citrix Workspace e-book
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Realize the business and economic benefits of a remote, flexible workspace
Table of contents
01 Supporting your remote workforce is no longer a “nice to do”
02 Study: Flexible work could drive $2.36 trillion in U.S. productivity gains
03 How IT can boost business success by delivering a secure, mobile employee experience
04 How Greenberg Traurig improved its employee and client experience
What is the long-term economic impact of flexible working cultures?
Enabling remote work can lead to substantial business and economic benefits. But to achieve these benefits, you need the right technology that allows employees to work from anywhere effectively.
With more employees working from home, IT teams are scrambling to get everyone connected.
Until recently, many companies thought they had the right tools to help employees work from any location. But, now that businesses are moving their remote work processes from “in theory” to “in practice,” they are discovering that this is not the case.
Many companies are rushing to give employees new remote productivity and collaboration tools. However, they are putting little consideration into how these technologies will impact their IT complexity and data security.
Allowing users to supply their own tools is convenient but could add even more complexity. If business units and employees choose their own tools, you may:
- Spend too much time and resources on IT support
- Lose visibility into your environment
- Increase your risk of security breaches and data loss
As an IT leader, you have the opportunity to build a secure and flexible workplace—minimizing your risks while helping your company achieve massive productivity and economic benefits.
10.2%
Flexible working options could increase the United States’ GDP by 10.2%
Even before the global pandemic, research showed that supporting a remote workforce yields economic benefits. A 2019 study by the Centre of Economics and Business Research (CEBR) found that flexible work models have a positive economic impact on individual businesses, as well as local and global economies.
According to the study of more than 2,500 U.S. knowledge workers, flexible work helps companies attract talent in a hyper-competitive labor market and increase employee engagement and productivity. Ultimately, these efforts can boost the U.S. economy by $2.36 trillion per year.
By offering flexible or remote work options, your company can expand its talent pool by engaging the following candidates:
- Parents who put their careers on hold to take care of children
- People who gave up jobs to care for aging parents
- Retired Baby Boomers who would consider working a few hours a week in non-traditional settings
Key benefits of flexible working for employees
93%
of respondents said flexible working options would help them manage their time more effectively and devote extra hours to work tasks
68%
of employees said remote work would help them get more done, as they would spend less time commuting
5.8
billion
Commuting hours saved each year
$44.4
billion
Saved in commuting costs
$107
billion
Back in the pockets of U.S. workers, due to time and cost savings
You can also entice contract and part-time employees to take on more work.
The CEBR study revealed that:
- 69 percent of respondents who are unemployed or economically inactive would consider working if they had flexibility
- 65 percent of part-time workers would be inclined to take more hours if they could do so remotely
- 95 percent of knowledge workers who are currently employed would work from home 2.4 days per week if given the opportunity
Companies that wish to attract and retain skilled employees—and sustain productivity no matter what happens—must redefine the “workplace.”
This means that your IT team must create flexible digital environments that allow employees to access the apps and data they need to perform at their best from any location.
With new models of work and continually shifting business needs, it’s critical for you to provide users with the right tools. You must move beyond piecemeal collaboration apps to offer an integrated platform that gives employees an easy, secure way to find information and perform essential tasks.
Flexibility and mobility are crucial to employee engagement and business success in today’s rapidly evolving work environment. But to achieve these benefits, you need to unify your technology.
Citrix Workspace empowers employees by pulling all of the apps, files, and data that they need into a single platform that is accessible from any device or location. Keeping everything in one place also gives IT more visibility and control for simplified management, security, and compliance.
The following are five ways Citrix Workspace solves barriers to mobility and flexibility.
1. Provide a seamless user experience
Citrix Workspace supports iOS, Mac OS, Android, Chrome OS, and Windows. These options help you give employees a consistent experience—no matter what device or operating system they use.
Additionally, Citrix Workspace eliminates many of the distractions that prevent employees from getting stuff done. It does this by aggregating all of their relevant content, data, and applications into a single interface. When employees log in, they will see a personalized feed with their priority tasks at the front and center.
Employees no longer need to jump between multiple apps and files to complete a single task. With everything in one place, they can spend less time searching for information and more time on the high-value work that matters.
2. Reduce risk with a zero trust approach to access
Empower employees to work from any device and location without compromising IT security. With Citrix Workspace, your IT team can:
- Take a zero trust approach to security so that you can constantly evaluate access while giving users a seamless experience
- Apply role-based security to ensure that employees only access the content they are authorized to view
- Control what actions users can take once they sign in. For example, you can restrict copying, pasting, printing, sharing, and downloading
- Provide employees with a single sign-on (SSO) to all of their apps and data. The fewer passwords that people have, the more you will reduce your risk of data loss
- Block malicious websites without sacrificing employee productivity by providing an isolated browser that allows employees to safely visit unknown or untrusted sites
3. Simplify IT management and scalability
Citrix Workspace provides a unified management console where you can gain an on-demand view of your company’s endpoints, apps, and data. Storing all of this information in one location makes it easier for you to monitor and control your environment.
You can also minimize IT management while supporting a growing workforce. It’s easy to scale Citrix Workspace for seasonal workers, new branch offices, or in-house employees who suddenly need to work remotely.
4. Maintain visibility into and control over sensitive data
You don’t need to sacrifice your security to provide employees with flexibility. Citrix Workspace gives you the visibility and controls you need to respond to the new ways people work.
- Gain visibility into and control over all your company’s data—whether accessed from company-owned or BYOD devices and whether users are connecting via a corporate, home, or public network
- Proactively monitor applications and endpoints for threats
- Deliver apps securely—across any device or network
- View analytics on user behavior and potential risks
5. Enable remote work without a VPN
Set up your remote employees quickly without creating the security and user experience gaps that are common with VPNs. Citrix Workspace offers a secure alternative to the traditional VPN appliance-based approach. It does this by providing access to intranet resources through the Workspace app or any native browser installed on an end-user device.
With Citrix Workspace, you can:
- Provide the right levels of access to applications deployed on premises without opening access to the entire network
- Continuously assess user behaviors and risks
- Easily enforce secure access policies for individual apps depending on user context
- Scan end-user devices before enforcing the appropriate authentication and access policies
- Deliver a better user experience than VPNs, especially for low bandwidth network connections
Meanwhile, users will can keep their personal privacy intact when they use their own devices for work. They can also access all of their applications with SSO, eliminating the hassle of memorizing multiple passwords or dealing with VPNs.
Greenberg Traurig LLC, a global law firm, has built its reputation on delivering innovative, quality legal representation. Sometimes, that means doing work after traditional business hours, from remote locations, while attorneys are on the go, or even during natural disasters.
The law firm chose Citrix technology to simplify its workflows and processes, making it easier for its IT team to manage diverse challenges and disparate environments.
Citrix Workspace consolidates the firm’s IT services onto one platform. As a result, attorneys can securely work, audit documents, and take care of billing from one dashboard. In a highly regulated industry such as the legal field, ensuring the security of sensitive data is a critical part of being compliant and serving clients. With Citrix, the firm’s IT team can maintain control over security functions while giving employees and clients a better experience.