Boost end-user productivity in 2019 with these insights

IT professionals can provide workspaces that support end-user productivity by simplifying applications and making secure desktop delivery easier.

IT should look for chances to improve the user experience with technologies that reduce distractions and improve employee workflows. End-user productivity innovations can affect software suites such as Microsoft Office 365 and other utilities to improve employees' abilities to do their jobs.

Organizations must pay attention to the latest advancements in end-user productivity management that can simplify authentication and give users access to all their apps in one place. Read what three experts had to say about improving end-user productivity in 2019.

Andrew Hewitt
Analyst at Forrester Research

Companies are looking deeper into the concept of distraction in the Digital workplace. Seventy-one percent of employees said they need a high level of concentration, while only 38% of people believe they achieve that. Those are some concerning productivity numbers.

Andrew Hewitt

Microsoft [Office] 365 looks at your behavior at work. MyAnalytics is embedded in [Office] 365 just for the users to see their workspace habits. On the IT side, it's just a matter of configuring it, but the user can let MyAnalytics embed workflows within Outlook to really improve their scheduling.

If companies don't have [Office] 365, they should look into some of the other broader offerings, such as Sapience Analytics Enterprise that can help you diagnose different productivity barriers.

Joe Gilmore
Systems management specialist at Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System

Joe Gilmore

The workplace isn't secure without two-factor authentication. Using [just] a login and a password isn't two-factor authentication; they both fall under the same factor category -- something you know. Today, there are three common authentication factors -- something you know, something you have and something you are.

Something you know can include a username or password. Something you have might be a token, like Google Authenticator. Something you are is a biometric authenticator that a device can scan, like a retina or a fingerprint. The potential for a fourth is somewhere you are; it's when a user needs to be at a GPS-verified location, like a regional office.

Without two-factor authentication in my organization, a standard dictionary attack could compromise all of my organization's kiosks. That's not going to happen on my watch.

Michael Silver
Vice president and research director at Gartner

Michael Silver

When it comes to office software as a service, it's pretty much a duopoly between Google and Microsoft. Google has G Suite and Microsoft has Office 365 and, in most cases, Microsoft is the incumbent.

The duopoly hasn't made them complacent, though, and the competition has actually increased. In fact, there has been a lot more innovation [by Microsoft and Google] in the last five years than in the five or 10 before that.

If there's one lingering criticism that most folks would levy, it would be that the way you create documents hasn't changed much over those years. Probably 60% of organizations have not chosen a cloud [software] vendor yet, so that's going to keep driving this competition.