8 Ways to Save Time at Work

Posted on June 30, 2015

By Anthony Taccone, Director of Marketing

A real service saves time, right? That’s one of the greatest benefits of switching to Desktop as a Service (DaaS) – DaaS saves time for your IT team and everyone else who comes in contact with desktop computers. Or you could look at it this way: if the IT team isn’t managing user desktops and the users aren’t battling app problems, everyone can be more productive, right?

While the benefits your organization will receive from Desktop as a Service will really depends on the DaaS provider you choose (read more about how DaaS vendors compare), if you pick the right one, here what you can do with all of the time saved – and why.

1. Lead new IT projects. We’re not talking projects simply for the sake of a taking on a project. We’re talking about real improvements that your IT team has been hoping to get to but never can. It could be as simple as running training classes for users who want to use a specific project management tool. Or maybe the IT team can begin leading tech-related projects rather than jumping in at the last minute since that was formerly all the time they had. Where does the extra time come from? DaaS supports both administrators and users, so the IT staff no longer has to spend time on support or even setting up a new user.
2. Work on what-I-was-hired-for tasks – like accounting or purchasing or marketing or HR. Computer downtime eventually affects everyone on every team. But because support technicians in a DaaS environment can screen share with your users, support is handled more quickly and employees can spend more time doing the work they were actually hired to do (because no one was hired to sit around and wait for his or her computer to start working).
3. Attend a conference or seminar or webinar or even take a class. IT teams have some of the fastest-changing jobs ever and would love to learn everything possible to stay up on tech – and, with DaaS, they can since they won’t have to spend time reimaging hard drives. With DaaS, your hardware is stable, locked-down and, ideally (again, provided you select the right vendor), only talking to your DaaS-providers’ servers, which means the need to rebuild operating systems and applications is dramatically reduced. This gives your IT team has time to investigate new strategies and even discover all-new apps that could benefit everyone in the company.
4. Budget. We admit it – no one likes budgeting and forecasting – but it’s one of the huge benefits of DaaS providers who have a set fee that includes everything from apps to support. So budgeting, whether it’s IT budgeting or budgeting by the accounting team or another group entirely, gets to look at DaaS as an operating expense that doesn’t depreciate. This is especially important if you are a startup, where DaaS can dramatically reduce initial hardware spending, too.
5. Review user stats and analytics. There’s not an organization out there that doesn’t wish it could do more with user data. So when time-consuming tasks – like managing every desktop, purchasing app licenses, upgrading apps or dealing with the problems that inevitably follow every upgrade – are handed off to your DaaS provider, there’s more time available internally to review who’s using what, which apps are most effective, and focus on where improvements could be made.
6. Do anything other than stress about BYOD. Workers want to use their own devices – it’s just a fact of doing business these days. So let your DaaS provider give you a secure method of working with BYOD in the workplace. Remember, with DaaS, provided it’s done right, users don’t take company data with them on their device since they’re using their desktop and its apps in a secure Cloud environment. And if something happens to their device, the data doesn’t go with it.
7. Resist the temptation to roll out Windows 10 before it’s actually safe to do so. We love this part of DaaS: your provider should do all of the testing and offer a new OS only once it knows that new OS is really ready – and once you agree with the upgrade. This will potentially save days, weeks, even months of stress and work redoing everything in the event that the new OS crashes all your users or becomes an annoying time sink for everyone. Time saved could even go toward teaching everyone how to use the new OS – and it won’t be for naught because you won’t adopt Windows 10 until both you and your vendor is ready.
8. Throw away the pager. Yes, we know no one uses pagers anymore. But when desktop management and support are handed off to a third party with a set fee-per-user that relieves budgeting woes, and the service you subscribe to increases dependability, security and productivity and everything else that goes along with DaaS, everyone gets to enjoy their time off a little more, too. (And for the people on your team who like to work during their time off, see #6 – they’re covered, too.)

When Desktop as a Service is really a service, everyone gets to reclaim valuable time and resources – from the IT team to the user. IT staff is freed from drudge work and gets to tackle more meaningful projects that add to the business rather than just maintaining it. Users save time and headaches associated with apps and logins. The angst directed at IT over support issues evaporates and the computers get out of users’ way and become more useful, maybe even faster, tools. We think of it this way – DaaS does the patching so you can do lunch.

Want to learn more about how Desktop as a Service or DaaS will benefit your company? Contact Nuvestack.