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There may be a big difference between how you see your organisation’s technology, and how your customers and employees experience it. While we’re in the head office, tethered directly to underlying systems and infrastructure, our customers could be in any location struggling to make a purchase through our app, or a remote employee could be repetitively refreshing an app to access the data they need to make a decision.

To deliver the personalised and connected experiences that our customers and stakeholders demand, we need to begin moving intelligence closer to the edge of our networks. Because that’s where we live, work, and learn. Against this backdrop, the organisations who will be able to carve out a sustainable advantage over the long term will be those who leverage more connected workplaces, campuses, and stores, and combine these with new advances in mobility and cloud services.

The workplace is the first area we should be investigating for intelligent edge technology. Doing so allows us to deliver the experiences that will keep employees engaged with their work while dramatically boosting productivity. When we consider the next generation of talent are now entering the workforce in large numbers, our ability to recruit and retain them will increasingly hinge on our ability to offer smarter and more connected workplaces.

Younger Millennials and Gen Y will be the first generations of workers to have a better understanding of the possibilities of enterprise technology than their older colleagues. Because they know what’s possible, they’ll expect technology to provide them with the flexible means to be productive and collaborate on projects. Some example of this include:

• Video conferencing that is as seamless and easy as picking up a phone.
• Virtual meetings that are easily joined and controlled by users.
• Meeting room and asset booking that can happen in real-time though a mobile app.
• Connected lights and air-conditioning that can easily be controlled by employees.

Beyond the workplace, IoT, mobility and the cloud are all converging to transform nearly every aspect of our organisations. Other examples of the power of intelligent edge networks include:

Hospitals  – Patients can receive vastly better care when doctors have the ability to access all of the data they need, right at the patient’s bedside.

Campuses – Students and visitors can find exactly where they need to go on campus with mobile apps and location beacons, that can also be updated to send notifications if a class location changes.

Stores – We’re increasingly seeing stores using location services to blend the online shopping experience with in-store shopping through push notification offers and promotions.

Factories – rich data is being harnessed to ensure factory processes are monitored in real-time, while machines are proactively maintained reduce interruptions and waste.

The good news is that these amazing experiences can be delivered, while simultaneously making your IT teams’ lives easier. Through secure, simple, and smart networking that brings together Aruba’s best-in-class wired and wireless network solutions with their industry-leading security framework, you can begin using the edge of your network to create a new advantage today.

About the author

As the Managing Director of Aryon, my team and I are here to reduce the complexity for organisations who want to take advantage of next-generation networks, infrastructure and workforce technology.  If you would like to discuss how your organisation can take advantage of new digital networks, infrastructure and technology without the added stress, please feel free to get in touch with me at dean.bartlett@116.90.41.25.