Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world where distance and geographical location have little impact on the ability to get the job done?  Where transactions - mobile or otherwise - are completely secure, and where employees come to work with the device of their choice, supported seamlessly by IT departments and policies? Imagine how productive and effective that world would be.

This world is no fantasy: It’s here now. It’s where many large organizations strive to be, and it’s a world I understand. In the next few months, I will share with you the trends that are affecting businesses today and how they will most likely affect your strategy on becoming a Future Friendly Enterprise. 

This series will provide a deeper look at the following four trends:

1. The Consumerization of IT: Influenced by technology decisions that are being driven by forces other than IT policies, including the demand for support of personal devices that are allowed to connect to the corporate network, regardless of brand or operating system. The implications for IT are significant as they must now support multiple devices and operating systems, as well as individual usage models. But the rewards are even greater in terms of employee satisfaction, lower cost and improved productivity.
   
2. Changing workstyles: The desire of employees to work from anywhere, at any time, and on any device. Tied into the desire by corporations to boost productivity and support workers regardless of their geographical location, while at the same time decreasing real estate costs and having a greener organizational footprint, this trend has both staying power and a long success cycle.
   
3. Beyond the firewall: The need to access data that is both behind and beyond the firewall. Face it: the information that employees need to do their jobs effectively is not found exclusively within the safe harbour created by the Enterprise firewall. Much of it lies beyond that firewall in the cloud, on the public Internet and within customer networks. It is crucial to provide access to those resources while at the same time protecting corporate data assets.
   
4. Increasing customer expectations: The demand for a service experience unlike anything that has ever existed before. There was a time when the voice-centric contact centre was adequate for customer interactions – no longer. Today, customers still want voice contact, but increasingly they want to be able to stay in touch using other modalities such as e-mail, texting and various social media platforms. This is a challenge for many corporations, but is an unavoidable one.
   

These four trends lie at the heart of the Future Friendly Enterprise, and in the weeks that follow, I’ll share more about them, including some ways that you can take best advantage of them. In the meantime, think about these questions. Does your organization recognize the need to be a Future Friendly Enterprise?  What does Future Friendly Enterprise mean to you?

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This is the first in a series featuring Dr. Steven Shepard, Principal & Co-founder, Executive Crash Course.  Executive Crash Course offers comprehensive executive education, industry know-how and a “community” network to the telecom industry.

Steven Shepard
Principal & Co-ounder

Mr. Shepard founded the Shepard Communications Group in Williston, Vermont. A professional author and educator with more than 30 years of varied experience in the telecommunications industry, he has written more than 50 books and numerous industry magazine articles and white papers. Mr. Shepard has participated in and produced webinars, podcasts and training videos. He is an internationally sought after speaker and consultant with clients in more than 70 countries.