Technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine Learning (ML) are reinventing business efficiency. To gain a competitive advantage and to stay ahead of the trend, organisations need to go the extra mile because being merely ‘digital’ is no longer enough. In the next five years, global studies have shown that more than 50% of employees expect to be working in a smart office.
Welcome to the Age of the Smart Office
A smart office enhances productivity while creating a better employee experience with today’s technology. Having a smart workplace is increasingly important as it is key in driving intelligent collaboration and powering workforce mobility.
However, being ‘smart’ is not just about innovation; truly smart business solutions must address and solve difficulties often encountered in legacy systems. As defined by Lenovo, a smart office should have an integrated system of multiple devices that work in tandem, freeing up employees from technical struggles, which will slow down their workday productivity.
Inspire Team Collaboration in Smart Meeting Rooms
Enabling smarter meetings for more intelligent collaboration is one of the pillars of a future-ready workplace. With the growing trend of mobile workforce, it’s important to introduce technology where users can connect and collaborate at their own comfort. By enabling simple yet efficient conferences, it provides a space for participants to be creative and focus on exchanging ideas, ultimately concluding the session with results. In fact, three in five employees believe that technology will make face-to-face meetings obsolete.
Being ‘smart’ also means having devices that are adaptable and respond accordingly to business’ unified communications platform of choice, be it Skype for Business, Zoom, or Chime. In fact, businesses are already investing in collaboration technology. There will be a huge demand for conference room technology over the next two to three years, with companies expected to invest around US$100 billion on collaboration technology in 2020.
Laying the Building Blocks of a Future-Ready Workplace
Employees are looking ahead; almost half (46%) of today’s workforce is looking at augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies to them to perform better in the workplace. Businesses will soon see AR/VR being used to collaborate on projects or attend meetings remotely.
As for laptops, technology such as Intel® Optane™ memory can adapt to users’ working patterns and identify how to provide higher performance without compromising storage capacity. This results in faster applications and laptops that are more responsive to everyday tasks, accelerating productivity gains — think running multiple presentation decks without crashing or large media files playing smoothly.
Businesses need to start by understanding what direction to move in and work out the infrastructure needs. Then, find a technology partner that can provide end-to-end services to help navigate both the solutions and services required to scale the business to greater heights.
Are you ready to kick off your workplace transformation?
By Khoo Hung Chuan
Khoo is the Country General Manager of Lenovo Malaysia. He leads the consumer and commercial segments in the country.
