12 March 2012, Kyiv. Softline IT forecasts growing demand for virtualization technologies worldwide. This view is based on the published Citrix Global Index Workshifting report. It states that by the end of 2013, 93% of all organizations will offer their employees the option of workshifting — working outside the office. By comparison, only 37% of the world's leading companies offer this option today.
Mobile work is effective when technologies and policies enable employees to work outside the office, using wireless connections and personal devices, as productively as if they were in the office, connected to the corporate network from a work device. The idea of workshifting is that work processes are carried out in the optimal place, within the required time frame and with all available resources involved.
For employees, this means they can work productively wherever it is most convenient for them. For companies, it means they can cut organizational and IT costs by allowing employees to work anywhere, at a time convenient for them and on any device.
The workshifting concept has a number of undeniable advantages, including higher business productivity and agility, as well as greater employee mobility and flexibility.
IT executives name the following benefits of workshifting:
- Giving employees the ability to choose the optimal time, place and device for work. 71% of all respondents said they use a workshifting policy so that employees can work from anywhere, and 63% so that they can work from home when necessary.
- Ensuring uninterrupted staff access to desktops and applications in the event of any kind of disruption. 94% of the IT executives surveyed rated business continuity as highly important, and 93% agreed that desktop virtualization is a key element in achieving this goal.
- Reducing labor and travel costs, as well as the cost of renting or buying office space, through flexible working hours and the use of advanced telecommunication methods. Cost savings are one of the main advantages of workshifting and include a 45% reduction in staff costs, a 39% increase in the ability to recruit workers from regions with low production costs, a 38% reduction in real estate costs and a 26% reduction in the cost of ensuring environmental sustainability.
- Attracting and retaining the best employees by offering them flexible working hours and the ability to work remotely thanks to modern telecommunication solutions. 51% of the IT executives surveyed said that a workshifting policy had enabled them to attract and retain the most talented employees. Almost half of the respondents also point out that workshifting allows organizations to tap into a reserve workforce by efficiently outsourcing part of their tasks to external contractors, temporary workers and consultants.
Desktop virtualization is becoming a key component in building a more flexible work process: according to the survey, 91% of organizations plan to deploy virtual desktop infrastructure by the end of 2013. 57% of respondents said that one of the goals of their planned or ongoing virtualization rollout is implementing the workshifting concept.
The independent Citrix Workshifting Index study is based on responses from 1,100 IT executives of companies located in eleven countries (one hundred in each country): Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States of America (USA). Three quarters of the respondents work in organizations with 1,000 or more employees, and one quarter in companies with 500 to 999 employees.