This no-nonsense guide takes you through the key points you’ll need to consider when you’re looking into investing in an effective, sustainable, and scalable remote working solution that improves workforce mobility and productivity for all users, without increasing IT cost and complexity.
Drawing on real-world experience and business outcomes from leading practitioners in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) space, it outlines essential steps to building a business case for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).
VDI For Remote Workers: What Are the Benefits?
Organisations are increasingly turning to VDI solutions as an easy to scale remote working technology solution, where large upfront CapEx costs are largely replaced by OpEx. However, many IT teams quickly found off-the-shelf platforms simply couldn’t cope with the demands of power users working with big data or graphics-heavy applications. The result has been that these users have effectively become shackled to their office IT set-up.
Workforce Gains
- Greater mobility
- Richer collaboration
- Increased productivity
- Better decision-making
- Improved version control resulting in less rework
- Enhanced work-life balance
IT Gains
- Eliminates needs for pricy refreshes and maintenance on hardware
- Smaller storage footprint
- Built in disaster recovery
- Less helpdesk traffic
- Centrally managed updates
- Capacity that scales with the businesses need for change
Business Gains
- Faster time to market
- Improved business uptime and productivity
- Recurring saving on pc software liscenses and support contracts
- Stronger balance sheet
- Predictable OpEx payments
- More agile IT platforms for growth
Leveraging Workforce Mobility
VDI has come a long way in recent years. Network, compute and storage technologies are more reliable and higher performing. Thin provisioning has reduced wasted storage by allocating space only as needed, while linked clones enable virtual machines (VMs) to share disks via virtual storage area networks. Summed up, such improvements better utilise existing resources and significantly cut costs.
In the hands of Creative specialists, VDI has now been engineered for the most demanding of settings, like super users working with big data or graphics-heavy applications, releasing these employees from their traditional office IT systems.
Crucially, our purpose-built VDIPOD solution gives users tools and experiences identical to or better than they enjoy in the workplace. Creative VDIPOD combines best of breed technologies into a Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) solution that was purpose built to truly enable working from anywhere across the entire workforce, from knowledge users with basic IT needs through to high graphics and data users.
At last, IT teams can successfully provide workforce mobility for everyone in a single VDI solution.
A Solid Business Case
A business case for any IT investment must, of course, be founded on a solid financial argument. But, in our experience, mounting a successful campaign for VDI adoption requires a more holistic approach.
Beware of companies offering VDI solutions designed solely to save money. While businesses can and do achieve IT cost savings by implementing virtual desktops, the reality is this isn’t always the case.
Before and after IT infrastructure costs often remain flat or rise slightly. So, while it’s right to do a cost comparison, a business case based purely on cost saving is unlikely to fly and ignores a host of wider benefits that companies can unlock through investing in virtual desktop infrastructure.
Pretty much without exception, Creative clients who have overcome the hurdles of financial approval and seen the best results from their VDI investment have justified and built support on the basis they can unlock significantly greater value for around the same outlay.
How Creative ITC Can Help You
With our unparalleled experience of delivering VDIPOD solutions within the AEC sector, we can provide real-life usage data and feedback to help you benchmark performance in real time and develop a proof of concept to validate improvements within your environment. So, you can strengthen your business case with meaningful numbers, combined with powerful workforce, IT and business gains. Contact us today to learn more.