Understanding the digital workspace

As consumers, we expect to be able to easily interact with our favourite brands, find information or engage with like-minded people from whatever device we choose to use, from wherever we are in the world.

This online experience in our personal lives has in turn influenced our expectations for our online experiences in the workplace too. For example, if I’m able to easily communicate with my friends on social media in real-time, why can’t I easily communicate with colleagues in another office just as easily? If I can read a news article from my favourite magazine on my mobile or tablet device, why can’t I view a contract I was working on in the office whilst on the train home?

But why is this important to an organisation’s customers as well as their employees? The behind the scenes activity is not their concern, they just want to be able to click a few buttons and get their shopping delivered the next day. Well, to reach and exceed the expectations of our customers, as businesses we need to ensure that our internal processes encourage an increased collaborative experience to improve efficiency and meet growing demands.

The IDC predicts that by 2020, 60 per cent of Global 2000 companies will double their productivity by digitally transforming business processes from human-based to software-based delivery.

Enter the Digital Workspace, enabling businesses to collaborate better and improve productivity. We describe the digital workspace as a collection of evolving technologies that optimise employee experience and engagement with the tools and resources they require, anywhere and on any device, allowing them to be more effective.

What does it look like?

The size and shape of the digital workspace will vary depending on the shape, size and objectives of the organisation, but its key elements should foster greater:

• Communication and employee engagement
• Collaboration between teams
• Learning and knowledge sharing
• Flexible working with the ability to work anywhere, at any time from any device, where “work” is no longer a place
• Workforce effectiveness and improved staff satisfaction

Putting the user first

No doubt, technology is a focal point of the digital workspace. But it’s important to first understand the needs of your business and your employees, preparing a detailed strategy to map out how technology can help you meet these objectives.

Implementing new technology into any organisation can be disruptive. In a hyper-connected environment, it can be overwhelming for some employees to get to grips with the widened capabilities of the digital workspace. So a process of change management is important in ensuring that your employees adopt and engage with updated processes and truly understand their value and benefits. Investing time in this and focussing on your people first will ensure that every decision taken makes the digital workspace a pleasure to use.

Internal transformation reaps external benefits

As end-users and customers expect better service, faster and cheaper – we as marketers need to respond and leverage the opportunities that digital provides, now and in the future.

At ClearPeople, we call ourselves a Consultagency, a hybrid breed of business offering technical consulting with digital agency services. Our consultagents work with businesses to make their internal systems just as compelling as their external ones to maximise the return on investment for marketing teams and ensure their public-facing websites are meeting the needs of the business.

By making a marketer’s job easier through the implementation of an enhanced digital workspace, and forging a relationship between technology, data and analytics means that organisations will be able to better connect internally with their employees to better engage externally with their customers.

Katya Linossi, Co-Founder and MD, ClearPeople.