Analyzing Real-World Usage Patterns to Design End-User Computing Services

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We’ve all heard the industry buzz around the need for IT to transform to become a broker of services to the business. The cost and business agility benefits that coincide with delivering ITaaS are proven and the need to transform is reinforced by the increasing number of external service providers for IT services. But, as organizations are transforming to become brokers of services, what does this mean for the services for business professionals, or “end-users” in the rather nerdy industry parlance? How do these IT consumers  manage the abundance of apps, operating systems, and devices that are consistently changing in their environment?

One of EMC’s Global Services experts on End-User Computing, Michael Fox, sheds light on some of the challenges IT organizations are faced with in managing their end-user services and the incentive they have to transform and upgrade these services.

Today, we live in a world in which everyone is constantly on the move. We work and communicate from planes, trains, and automobiles. We expect seamless access to our devices, data, and applications whenever and wherever we need it. In order to upgrade the end-user experience, IT organizations need to provide this flexible and constant access to users, empower them with device choice, and enable them to be as mobile as they need to be. To do so, it is critical that organizations focus on managing the whole user environment rather than devices. At EMC, our approach to transforming end-user services is to focus on putting the user first and understanding the specific requirements associated with each type of user (e.g. task worker, road warrior). This optimizes end-user services so that users obtain the best experience possible when accessing their devices and apps. Another important element of the EMC approach is to leverage automation and self-service to maximize productivity, IT responsiveness, and end-user experience.

Characterizing users is a critical first step in enabling IT organizations to define the appropriate end-user services for their environment. Modern data analysis techniques allow us to calibrate the applications and usage patterns for individual users, so that design assumptions for end-user computing groups can be validated against real-world usage scenarios. Once these user patterns and requirements are understood, IT organizations can gauge what resources they need in order to transform their end-user environment.

Michael elaborates on how EMC gathers detailed information about each user in order to understand their needs and requirements, and subsequently, what EMC can do with this information.

EMC has seen how the transformation of end-user services and the overall end-user experience greatly benefits IT organizations and propels their journey towards becoming service brokers. End-user transformation reduces TCO, eliminates time-consuming processes, simplifies IT management, and maximizes user productivity with automation and flexible, seamless access from whenever, wherever.

To learn more about EMC’s approach, read the service overview on end-user services here.

About the Author: David Buffo

David is a Consulting Marketing Manager for Dell Technologies Services, based in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. He has 25 years’ experience in the IT industry, including 15 years in solutions and services. David’s focus is IT infrastructure, but his work with clients is concerned with accelerating transformation of IT from a technology supplier into a provider of services to the business. He started with EMC (now Dell Technologies) in 2004 and meets regularly with clients at Dell Technologies' executive briefing center and at industry conferences.
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