Digital Workspace

Over the past year, many organizations scrambled to roll out new collaboration technologies and end-user devices to enable their employees to remain productive while they worked remotely. These efforts were necessary, and they bridged a gap to keep businesses up and running during an unprecedented period. However, they often resulted in one-size-fits-all solutions that did not adequately account for the differences in how business units and individual employees use collaboration tools.

As we head into the “next normal” — a period when many people will return to offices even as hybrid and flexible work schedules remain common — it will be important to optimize collaboration environments. One way to do this is by understanding and developing end-user personas.

It’s time to finally say goodbye to Skype for Business Online. Though the sunset date for the platform — July 31, 2021 — is quickly approaching, you still have time to get ready. However, there are some important things to think about when moving to whatever your replacement platform will be.

For most organizations, the logical next step is Microsoft Teams, and many of these organizations have already found new ways to take advantage of Microsoft Teams to collaborate over the past year. To help continue the push forward, here are three of the questions I hear most often from organizations that are planning to fully transition to Teams ― and my thoughts on how to best prepare.

For decades, colleges and universities have struggled with making online and blended learning courses as meaningful and engaging as in-person classes. At least momentarily, the COVID-19 pandemic has put many students and instructors on a level playing field. More courses than ever, including those that have historically been offered exclusively in person, are being taught through a remote or blended model.

The current environment represents an enormous opportunity for higher education institutions to step back, take stock and seek out solutions to increase the quality of their remote and blended learning approaches.

Here are three ways that technology can help.

Cisco recently made it a requirement that any customer purchasing Webex Contact Center must also have a partner to handle their tier 1 and tier 2 (non-platform related) issues. To meet this need, CDW is excited to offer a Webex Calling/Webex Contact Center-focused Managed Collaboration Anywhere service as part of our extensive services catalog.

We created three service packages that will work for any customer: basic, essential or premium. Also available are add-on options, such as our call experience testing or managing the network that the Webex services utilize.

Last spring, when companies sent their employees home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many people simply couldn’t find a printer. In fact, a whole secondary market for low-end print devices sprouted up, with people paying three- or four-times retail price on third-party websites.

Looking ahead, it’s clear that many companies will continue to maintain a hybrid workforce of sorts, even after the end of the pandemic. Not everyone will work from home, and not everyone who does will need a printer. But enough people will need to print from home that it’s worth spending some time to plan out the best ways to enable home printing in the future.

Office print environments are already a hassle for IT departments, so it is essential for companies to plan for potential pain points. In particular, organizations must find ways to simplify ink and toner order management, manage costs and optimize their printer fleet for the future of work.

We still don’t know when or how the COVID-19 pandemic will end, but one thing seems certain: The workplace is unlikely to ever look the same.

While it has become clear that most businesses will maintain physical office spaces, the majority of employers say they will give their employees some choice over where they want to work once the pandemic is over. The likely result? A hybrid workforce made up of employees who split their time between home and the office, depending on their roles and their to-do lists on any given workday.

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) platforms are uniquely suited to support such an arrangement, offering the following benefits: