Podcast (Technomics) Innovating the Digital Workplace with Insight and VMware
The employee experience is rapidly evolving, and innovative technologies accelerate the path to a hybrid workforce.
By Insight Editor / 20 Apr 2021
By Insight Editor / 20 Apr 2021
Enabling a flexible approach to work requires tools that simplify remote work and streamline distributed collaboration. In this TechTalk, Dennis Lewis of Insight sits down with Amit Harjani of VMware to discuss end-user computing solutions that deliver modern, engaging employee experiences.
Audio transcript:
DENNIS
Hello, everyone.
Thanks for joining us on yet another one of Insight's TechTalks. I'm Dennis Lewis. I am a senior manager here managing the alliance relationship between VMware and Insight. Ultimately managing the professional main services as relates to EUC and user computing and here today. I have the pleasure of being joined here with my friend, my colleague, Amit Harjani. Oh, go ahead, Amit please introduce yourself.
AMIT
Hey Dennis. Thanks for having me on today. I really appreciate it. Yeah, like Dennis said, I'm part of the end user computing group at VMware focusing on Workspace ONE and helping our partners in the channel, accelerating their practices and maturing those models to help drive more revenue and more services with our channel partners.
DENNIS
Awesome. Well everyone we have a lot to cover today. I think primarily it's a new world at which we're all living in a lot of different exciting times here in the IT side, especially around end user computing, some organizations staying a hundred percent remote, some organizations going back, understanding what that delicate balance is. What we wanted to do is highlight some of the different scenarios, some of the challenges, some of the different projects that we're working on with multiple partners but primarily our kind of go-to market between Insight and VMware what those relationships and the value that we bring to our end clients.
So, Amit, I know there's a lot on the table that we can discuss in regards to some of the different projects we're working on but is there a, you know in regards to remote work, safe return to the office, what are some of the different ideas and projects that VMware is focused on?
AMIT
Well, let, let me start by saying like, like last March we had a big, big shift in the way we operate in business. All companies, no matter if you are in IT, manufacturing, retail, brick and mortar, everyone had a big sudden change to the way they do business and it impacted both how they interface with their current customers, as well as how they how their employees worked without being in the office and then going back to home. So, the VMware has the same experience where we're in a big, large global company, 30,000 employees and we have to quickly adjust and kind of shift how we operated in, in both the customer facing side, with our channel partners, as well as with, with our support teams and our R and D teams.
So, we had to go back and kind of rethink how we approaching remote work, how we approaching those strategies around getting folks back into the office where we can. So, yeah, so some of the things we had to take lessons from our side and look at, okay we have to work with certain groups within our organization. We call them the CMT group, the crisis management team and if think about that Dennis, we've had a lot of customers that actually have similar teams. They might not call them crisis management teams, but they are made up of individuals that are key to operating the business as a whole right? So, HR, facilities, IT, security. So, these folks kind of what we're hearing from in the field about what they what help they need from us to help get their people back into the office safely and securely or how do we help them from a remote perspective.
So, with that little synopsis and we've had several discussions about this, we're looking at different things, from control and building access, from mapping out the campuses. So, when we talk about a safe return to the office whenever that point comes, how are you spacing those desks? How are you controlling reservations of conference rooms? Making sure there's not too many folks in the conference room at one given time, how do you notify folks around the cafeteria that all this, the cafeteria has all the capacity we need to go to a different location, avoid, how do you send that mass notification out? Right? How do you use technology to enhance that and make it more streamlined for your employees?
DENNIS
So, it's almost like technical social distancing in the, the workplace, right?
AMIT
Correct. Correct and we've talked about this too like we can take another step further away you talking about like kind of a passport like using your HID card, your badge card that you use to get into the building. You can tie that into kind of using a way of, of making sure your employees verify that they have from an HR perspective, they're not then they've taken the vaccine, they're not infected, they have no temperature, so on so forth, before they're allowed access to the building and you can do that through HR applications, CRM tools and send a notification for them to fill out the form and update it before you allow access to the card reader.
DENNIS
That's pretty cool. So, is that all being pushed down by Workspace ONE today?
AMIT
Yeah. So, it's all tied into the end user computing group solution a solution stack Workspace ONE. Workspace ONE passcode enables that functionality. It's tied back into kind of the remote campus the Workspace ONE campus application that also helps with notification that ties back to intelligence to drive that CRM integration to be able to have the end user verify their health posture or health status and then allow access through APIs and updates by building in control access. Yep.
DENNIS
So, VMware has certainly taken a visionary role in leveraging some of the different technologies that a lot of our clients have in place today and just maximizing that investment, making sure clients are getting the best bang and making sure that we're kind of future-proofing the environment as individuals are returning, returning to the office. It's very cool.
AMIT
As they say drinking our own champagne.
DENNIS
Yes. Yes. Another trend that we're hearing a lot about is zero touch enrollment, drop ship factory provisioning, OEM deployments, things along those lines how's VMware responding or does VMware have a solution around drop ship factory provisioning?
AMIT
Yeah, absolutely. Great talk track there it kind of leads back into that “How do you ensure your employees have the right tools to be able to do their job?” Now they're not technically in the office and they might not be for the unforeseeable future. What if there is a refresh of a laptop cycle coming up or they need a new update? How are you fulfilling that? That's a big need. A lot of our customers have lots of Windows 10 deployments out there and they they're looking for a streamlined solution.
So, with Workspace ONE, we fully support a drop ship factory provision offering. and with Insight being one of our strategic partners, you can fulfill those devices through Insight. You can configure, provision the XML, the PPKGs. So basically, we have streamlined that whole process through the Workspace ONE helium console to be able to fulfill that device over the air and drop ship it to them.
DENNIS
Wonderful. Yeah. You know, I think just through the different level of partnerships that Insight has with some of our different OEMs, the level of relationship and partnership that Insight has with VMware and taking a lot of those benefits, the certifications, the time investments that we've put in place, right? Because a Workspace ONE engineer, a horizons engineers are very, very expensive resource (Dennis laughing) we all know how expensive it is and allowing clients to tap into kind of our revolving bench, ensuring that you know if we're here from the implementation of it to the installation, all the way to the end, that tribal knowledge of how their environment was built is never walking out the door or really never leaving, you know, the laptop so to speak in regards to who that talent is. Yeah.
AMIT
And the other aspect, which is great, I mean you guys have a great managed service model that you offer customers so that's another thing we've been hearing in the space today. Like we, our customers, sometimes you have IT stuff that not, there's not large enough, they don't have big budgets to staff a Workspace ONE engineer horizon and engineer, an architect to build it all out, to manage the environments. So sometimes it's just easier to find a managed service solution with a trusted partner that can help them architect design, roll out, provide data to support. That's very instrumental to a lot of customers, especially with the pandemic we just had this past year. A lot of customers have been asking us, like who are those partners that we should be talking to about these kinds of managed service models where we can lift that burden off and pass it on to a trusted partner to help us. So that's a big ask that we have been seeing in the field a lot lately.
DENNIS
Well, we certainly hope it's an ask that we're all betting on and we're all in on here certainly here at Insight so I think that's really where a lot of the passion comes, you know, for, for me personally is a lot of the different organizations coming to weigh in it together in ways that we never have before and you know applying and giving our clients and together collectively different solutions and offerings that they may have not had before and when all reality that, you know the large grocery chain stores, sorry about that, and focus on their core competency, the healthcare providers can focus on their core competency financial institutions focus on that and then as we come together through mobility and managed services, we're able to offload some of those burdens that they may have under IT and help supplement the type of work that they have. So, it's certainly an interesting time to come together but I think that through the partnership between VMware and Insight, there's a lot of good things that we can help some of our partners with today and most likely our clients.
AMIT
Absolutely I one hundred percent agree. I think there's a big opportunity ahead of us to drive that business.
DENNIS
Wonderful. Well, Amit I think we are reaching our time here. So, before we get kicked off we'll want everybody thanks for joining us. Please check out on April 28th, two o'clock Eastern time. We'll be joined by West Era and their journey to modern IT through Insight and VMware, so it's a webinar that we'll be posting that webinar will be posted at insight.com/thejourneytomodernIT and as always, please feel free to reach out to your Insight team members or your VMware team members, we're always here to help and thank you for joining us.
AMIT
Thanks guys.
[Music]
Sr. Manager Alliance Sales, Insight
Dennis’s experience includes 10+ years of solution selling in the Managed Mobility/ EMM space. He previously worked for Vox Mobile managing their VMware partnership and constructing their Managed Service Provider program for Workspace ONE, in addition to managing all of the Gartner-leading EMM solutions (i.e. MobileIron, MaaS360, Intune, BlackBerry, Jamf, etc.). He has a vast knowledge of client use cases with digital transformation delivered by VMware software, complimented by our vast array of services.
Solution Architect, VMware
Amit is a solution architect within the VMware end user computing business unit involved in developing VMware’s channel partner practices that focus on Workspace ONE and Horizon. Amit is an established architect with more than 10 years of experience in end user computing and digital cloud transformation solutions that have made him a strategic and innovative leader who thrives on challenging opportunities and delivering results.
