U.S. Companies Speed Up Digital Workplace Rollouts to Help Employees Go Remote During COVID-19 Lockdowns

ISG Provider Lens™ report finds U.S. enterprises quickly adopting remote support, managed mobility, videoconferencing and other capabilities to improve employee experience

STAMFORD, Conn., Nov. 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated long-term digital workplace initiatives at many U.S. enterprises as the companies have been forced into remote working, according to a new report published today by Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm.

The 2020 ISG Provider Lens™ Digital Workplace of the Future – Services & Solutions report for the U.S. found many companies now considering allowing nearly half their employees to work from home permanently. The sudden move to remote working has boosted interest in digital workplace technologies that let employees securely access work resources anywhere, any time and on any device or platform.

“Enterprises may never go back to the old ways of working,” said Jan Erik Aase, director and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research. “They need solutions and partners that are ready for the new future. This is an exciting and challenging time for providers of workplace technologies and services.”

As companies seek to rapidly implement workplace transformations, consulting has become a more important part of the process, according to the report. Enterprises need proper guidance before attempting any change that could affect remote employees’ experience, with work culture and change management critical to a successful transition, ISG says. Employers are beginning to see digital workplace initiatives as closely tied to business benefits, and many are turning to consultants to establish experience level agreements (XLAs) based on key performance indicators (KPIs).

To make home and remote workers as productive as possible, U.S. enterprises are adopting solutions and services to improve collaboration, device management, technical support and other digital workplace capabilities, the report says.

Managed mobility services have helped companies make sure remote employees have the devices, applications and data they need, whether through bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs or by issuing company-owned devices. Many are adopting the device-as-a-service model, which manages the entire device lifecycle from procurement to retirement, according to ISG.

The pandemic also has raised interest in modern unified endpoint management for both fixed and mobile systems. Still, U.S. companies are most interested in co-management functionality, which lets them use both legacy management tools and modern mobility management systems, the report says. At the same time, the pandemic has triggered a long-awaited wave of interest in cloud-hosted virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

As virtual collaboration became central to doing business during the pandemic, U.S. enterprises preferred their existing tools at first but in some cases have had to adopt other solutions. These companies tend to seek out platforms that can be adopted quickly, require less training and deliver visible business benefits, the report says.

The use of videoconferencing soared as lockdowns prevented travel and in-person meetings. Vendors saw spikes in the number of active users and started to focus on interoperability, as well as integration with productivity suites, for ease of use. Innovation has accelerated, including the development of artificial intelligence to automate mundane tasks and ease meeting fatigue. The videoconferencing boom has also attracted cybercriminals, and vendors now need to balance greater security with ease of use, ISG says.

The 2020 ISG Provider Lens™ Digital Workplace of the Future – Services & Solutions report for the U.S. evaluates the capabilities of 89 providers across six quadrants: Digital Workplace Consulting, Managed Workplace Services, Managed Mobility Services, Unified Endpoint Management, Enterprise Collaboration Solutions and Meeting and Conferencing Solutions.

The report names IBM a leader in four quadrants and Accenture, HCL, Microsoft, TCS, Unisys and Wipro leaders in three quadrants. Atos, Cognizant, DXC Technology, Google and NTT Data were named leaders in two quadrants, while Blackberry, BlueJeans, Capgemini, Cisco, Citrix, CSS Corp, Infosys, Ivanti, LogMeIn, MobileIron, Pomeroy, Slack, Stefanini, UST Global, VMware, Workplace from Facebook, Zensar and Zoom were named leaders in one quadrant. In addition, Cognizant, Hexaware, Infosys, LTI, Zensar and Zoho were named Rising Stars—companies with “promising portfolios” and “high future potential” by ISG’s definition.

Customized versions of the report are available from Hexaware and Pomeroy.

The 2020 ISG Provider Lens™ Digital Workplace of the Future – Services & Solutions report for the U.S. is available to subscribers or for one-time purchase on this webpage.

About ISG Provider Lens™ Research

The ISG Provider Lens™ Quadrant research series is the only service provider evaluation of its kind to combine empirical, data-driven research and market analysis with the real-world experience and observations of ISG's global advisory team. Enterprises will find a wealth of detailed data and market analysis to help guide their selection of appropriate sourcing partners, while ISG advisors use the reports to validate their own market knowledge and make recommendations to ISG's enterprise clients. The research currently covers providers offering their services globally, across Europe and Latin America, as well as in the U.S., Germany, Switzerland, the U.K., France, the Nordics, Brazil and Australia/New Zealand, with additional markets to be added in the future. For more information about ISG Provider Lens research, please visit this webpage.

A companion research series, the ISG Provider Lens Archetype reports, offer a first-of-its-kind evaluation of providers from the perspective of specific buyer types.

Starting this year, each ISG Provider Lens™ study will include a Global Summary to help enterprise subscribers better understand provider capabilities across all geographic markets covered by that study. All ISG Provider Lens™ reports also will now include an Enterprise Context feature to help executives quickly identify key insights related to their roles and responsibilities.

About ISG

ISG (Information Services Group) (Nasdaq: III) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. A trusted business partner to more than 700 clients, including more than 75 of the world’s top 100 enterprises, ISG is committed to helping corporations, public sector organizations, and service and technology providers achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm specializes in digital transformation services, including automation, cloud and data analytics; sourcing advisory; managed governance and risk services; network carrier services; strategy and operations design; change management; market intelligence and technology research and analysis. Founded in 2006, and based in Stamford, Conn., ISG employs more than 1,300 digital-ready professionals operating in more than 20 countries—a global team known for its innovative thinking, market influence, deep industry and technology expertise, and world-class research and analytical capabilities based on the industry’s most comprehensive marketplace data. For more information, visit www.isg-one.com.

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