Distributed collaboration is key to the future of work

It’s been almost two years since IT leaders were forced into remote work. Many viewed it as a temporary experiment. But today hybrid work models are a priority for IT and security leaders, according to recent research from Citrix.

In 2020, IT teams were focused on survival amid the great remote work pressure test. In 2021, they overhauled their infrastructure and strategies to accommodate their new model. And in the year ahead, IT and security leaders will embrace flexible technology strategies to deliver what is clearly the future of work.

Leading the charge

Business leaders who once bristled at the idea of remote work because they didn’t think employees could deliver outside the office now see the benefits it can deliver in terms of employee productivity and innovation.

Globally, 80% of business leaders believe that in a post-pandemic world, organisations will enter a phase of hyper-innovation due to tech-powered, hybrid working, which is generating more ideas than ever. This is according to Citrix’s The Era of Hyper-Innovation.

At the same time, many business leaders continue to face the challenge of leading teams distributed among hybrid offices and are calling on IT to create a successful digital workplace. As a result, over the next five years, enabling distributed collaboration is the number one priority for IT and security leaders, closely followed by ensuring always-on availability and empowering individual focus.

To truly unlock collaboration among hybrid teams, organisations need to adapt their IT systems to the way employees work. Employees need an intuitive, consistent work experience no matter where they work or what device they’re using. While automating work can’t eliminate digital distraction, it can help reduce the inefficiencies which result from employees wasting time on fragmented, mundane tasks.

Leaping hurdles

Digital workspace essentially means cloud-based, location-independent work with equally cloud-based protection of this work. At the same time, IT leaders need to ensure they’re integrating technology into the employee experience in a way that unlocks potential.

But the uptake in hybrid work isn’t without its challenges.

When asked to identify the top obstacles to driving distributed collaboration, IT leaders cited a lack of understanding of the needs across the business to effectively prioritise investments, as well as cumbersome infrastructure.

Security is also a concern. More than 40% of IT leaders called out ransomware attacks as the highest risk exposed by hybrid work. In addition, the Australian Cyber Security Centre observed nearly 500 ransomware reports during the 2020–21 financial year; an increase of 15% on the previous year.

Pushing forward

IT leaders need to consider company goals and culture, and ask themselves “which solutions best fit the needs and scale of my business?”

This will help inform which cloud-based solution is most appropriate to streamline their remote workforce and encourage collaboration.

And the more businesses depend on IT, the more important it is to protect applications and services from attacks. In recent research from Citrix, more than one-third of IT and security leaders cited bridging the cybersecurity gap as a key focus over the next year.

For many organisations, desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) is the answer. DaaS enables employees with authorisation to access their entire suite of applications via virtual desktops, in a secure, simplified way. A DaaS solution not only authenticates user access into the virtual workspace, but monitors user, application and network behaviour to ensure that corporate information remains secure, no matter where work is being done.

When it comes to securing a workforce that cycles in and out of the office, and ensuring an even playing field for collaboration, IT can no longer afford to make yesterday’s compromises between distributed collaboration and security. Instead, they must implement solutions and strategies that help them balance these seemingly competing priorities and chart a new course that allows them to deliver the future of flexible work.

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