Why you need to consider DaaS in your restart strategy
If you are unfamiliar with the term DaaS, you are quickly becoming part of the minority. In a DaaS, or Device-as-a-Service model, devices are procured, proactively maintained and serviced, and ultimately refreshed, all with minimal intervention from your IT team. Your staff have useful, working devices with little-to-no downtime, and IT is always on top of what is happening through cloud-based analytics and updates on all the devices in the DaaS environment.
Daas' big appeal is a set of pleased, productive device users, minus the daily burden of device management for IT, plus a wealth of insight about the devices, their use and opportunities for efficiency.
If that sounds appealing to you, you're not alone. Globally, the DaaS market is expected to reach 66.1 billion by 2023 - that's a compound annual growth rate of over 54 percent.
The new way of "work" is here to stay
The recent pandemic forced organizations to rethink how their staff members work, and many organizations successfully adapted a modern and remote work strategy. The way we work has drastically changed forever, causing businesses to embrace transformation.
While employees having the ability to work from anywhere creates endless opportunities and innovation, it also poses a new IT challenge. How can you support your organization without having direct physical access to their hardware AND empower employees to work at optimal efficiency? A DaaS model is the answer to ease several challenges and here's why:
1. Simplified device life cycle management
How often have we heard about an individual struggling to do their job well because they are working with outdated or failing hardware? What about the staff members stranded at home with technical issues that can't easily be self-remedied? It's a harsh reality that many devices are upgraded only when they have reached a point where user productivity is incredibly low. Often people don't reach out to IT for help until their devices are almost unusable. Keeping every piece of hardware is already onerous when all of them are concentrated in a single or small number of locations. When you add in a work-from-home or work-from-anywhere model, the task is more than daunting… it's downright intimidating!
In a DaaS model, a third party (like Compugen) is responsible for the device's modernization and health through its entire life cycle. Systems are assessed, deployed, implemented, serviced and ultimately replaced proactively by your partner before creating downtime and business outages for your team.
2. Predictive analytics & proactive management
Wouldn't it be great if someone could tap you on the shoulder and say, 'Just so you know, your cell phone battery seems fine now, but in about 2-4 weeks, you're going to experience a massive drop in battery life'? Imagine the frustration and aggravation you would be spared by not discovering this on your own at the most inopportune time. This is precisely what DaaS is designed to do.
Every organization has someone in charge of requisitioning new devices, but are they looking at battery life and many other aspects that cause a device to fail? Through a DaaS program, you can further improve your employees' experience with HP's software solutions that proactively monitor devices to predict device health and ensure security compliance. Such software eases the day-to-day tactical activities by managing on your behalf so that before a device starts to fail, it is proactively serviced or replaced to maintain maximum efficiency.
For example, within the Compugen DaaS program, the ability to track and replace hard drives before failure has saved our customers countless hours of reactive service – both replacing drives and recovering precious data.
As you consider DaaS programs, I'd encourage you to find one that collects, monitors and analyzes data about the devices in your environment and compares that against your standards. These analytics can enable the right provider to know and act immediately when devices do not meet your security compliance standards. This enhanced level of security is a huge benefit that can save enormous costs and time.
3. Reporting that makes a difference
You've likely heard it said that DaaS is no different from leasing, but that simply is not the case. In a lease agreement, you pay a monthly fee to use a product for a fixed term. DaaS, on the other hand, is a constant, proactive model that enables better business efficiency through device and information management.
One place where this can make a significant difference is in reporting. As an example, one of the tenants of the Compugen model is a quarterly review session where we look at the performance of our customers' devices, as well as trends, anomalies and concerns during that period. We regularly uncover areas that can materially impact the business environment. Things like:
- Systems with CPUs that are working harder than they should be and are likely to fail soon.
- Areas of the business that show higher utilization and stress on devices could benefit from the redistribution of devices or different ones that better handle the load.
- A summary of security concerns that arose over the period (we address those as they arise, but a quarterly summary gives an excellent perspective.
Through a well-run DaaS model, you should see a happier IT team (with time for other things…) and strong recommendations and insights that will allow your team to address local issues or catch concerns before they become systemic.
The bottom line: Improving business outcomes
Ultimately, it comes down to business outcomes, and a good DaaS program should help streamline your operations. An environment running at peak performance translates to much happier staff and ideally a more effective and profitable business. With IT concentrated on enhancements and innovation instead of maintenance and triage, every part of your business is focused on the future.
If you would like to learn more about DaaS and how it can help your business, reach out to me anytime. I'd love to discuss the possibilities with you.