Modernize Your Workforce with Cloud, Social and Mobile

This is the third entry in a series of articles by the CIO Advisory Team. Check out the previous one here.

We are in the Digital Age, and your AECO firm needs to embrace the trends and innovations of the modern workplace to stay competitive.

Cloud storage can affectively offload physical server storage as well as backup and recovery requirements. Cloud-based communication and collaboration technologies have emerged as connective tissue that allows us to enhance teamwork and effectively manage projects together while working from both inside and outside of the office. When combined, new compelling ways of working emerge that offer an exciting and extensible framework that heightens your ability to engage and mobilize the workforce and evolves your expertise well beyond traditional boundaries to the areas of greatest need.

Instant Messaging and other Social technologies reduce email traffic while enabling timelier and more personal one-on-one and group conversations. We can capture important digital chats, easily store and retrieve project materials, add dynamic visualizations, forms and procedures, and bundle it together into a logical structure for downstream use. We can access these tools through Mobile and desktop devices and can decide on the fly if the engagement benefits from any combination of audio, video, desktop sharing and text-based conversations.

There is no shortage of great options for Cloud, Mobile and Social technologies and rarely is it the case where one size fits all scenarios. One user might only require VPN to connect to organizational resources while others might require remote access to their office workstation. Still others might require that corporate information lives outside of your private corporate network to allow dynamic sharing with external project partners. While there are many solutions and methods for addressing these needs, one thing is becoming clear. As you move to Cloud-hosted software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, less time will be spent on common connectivity and security challenges and more time will be spent delivering leading-edge solutions to your clients.

Effective communication is key. Having the foresight and capability to bundle the right technologies and services with the right message around corporate objectives can create more complete solutions that empower and extend your firm’s business efforts. Technology can be an enabler, an opportunity creator and an accelerator. It’s a great opportunity for Business and Practice Leaders to come together to embrace the benefits of the modern workplace and LEAD within your organization!

We have an opportunity to turn negatives into positives and to build more effective, technology-enabled team structures that promote longer-term resiliency and connectedness. While remote work-sharing strategies may be implemented to address extraordinary challenges, they can also become a vital part of your practice going forward and offer more options, scalability and agility for your organization over the long term!

Find out more about how Microdesk enables AECO firms to LEAD through managed IT services from the CIO Advisory team. Contact our team here.