How to deliver a consistent employee experience across platforms.
IT administrators face a work environment radically different from five years ago when the move to remote work gained traction and became the norm as a result of the pandemic. It fueled the expectations of employees to have a flexible, application-on-demand work environment, regardless of where they work and what platform or device they’re using. Now, employees typically work in a composite environment, using physical devices, SaaS and DaaS solutions for application and virtual desktop delivery, and the latest trends, cloud PCs, and soon, AI-enabled PCs.
In 2025 IT staff must navigate this ever-changing environment while delivering an employee experience that is consistent and productive, across any platform or device. Plus, it must be done with a flat, essentially no-growth budget. Gartner projects an almost ten percent increase in global IT spending in 2025 but emphasizes most of that increase reflects price hikes and not real growth.
IT can consider these actions to deliver a positive user experience while controlling costs: 1.) consolidation of tools, 2.) increased role of DEX (digital employee experience) 3.) managing cloud driven endpoints 4.) securing workflows across platforms and 5.) enlisting managed service providers’ support.
- Streamlining through Consolidation
Faced with budget constraints IT teams can examine ways to streamline the delivery of programs and systems that support the digital workspace. A goal is to critically evaluate all toolsets in use with the objective of preserving budget while mitigating complexity. Instead of maintaining a sprawling array of specialized tools, organizations can seek integrated platforms, such as digital employee experience (DEX) solutions, which provide broader functionality. This shift will enable organizations to redirect savings toward strategic initiatives, such as AI development or enhanced cybersecurity measures. Consolidation will also simplify management and improve collaboration between IT teams, ultimately helping organizations do more with less.
- Increasing DEX Utility
IT teams need to look for flexible, agnostic workspace management solutions that can respond to whether endpoints are running Windows 11, MacOS, ChromeOS, virtual desktops, or cloud PCs. They want to future proof their endpoint investments, knowing that their workspace management must be highly adaptable as business requirements change.
To support this disparate endpoint estate, DEX solutions have come to the forefront as they have evolved from a one-off tool for monitoring employee experience to an integrated platform by which administrators can manage endpoints, security tools, and performance remediation.
Modern DEX solutions replace the IT overload of multiple agents on a single device, each performing a specific task. By integrating these functions via a DEX platform, IT can reduce the number of agents needed to monitor and manage endpoints and cut down on IT infrastructure – all budget friendly moves.
- Managing Cloud Centric Workspaces
Employees today may be using DaaS to access virtual desktops, SaaS to retrieve applications from the cloud and the increasingly popular cloud PCs, and personalized virtual machines powered by Windows 365. Add to this mix the advent of AI PCs which are designed to run GenAI models and other applications.
Cloud PC environments and SaaS-based applications amplify the need for end-to-end monitoring solutions that ensure seamless user experiences. IT teams need to search for tools capable of providing real-time visibility into application performance, network health, and user interactions across diverse endpoints. Unified dashboards, AI-driven insights, and automated alerts will become essential for IT teams to quickly diagnose and resolve issues. As AI technology matures, employees will be freed from troubleshooting issues at their workspace, as advanced AI systems will predict and resolve issues before they affect the employee.
DaaS offers a competitive cost and ease of deployment and maintenance compared to other virtualization vendors. Like other cloud offerings, DaaS also requires effective troubleshooting and remediation tools plus real time access to performance metrics to analyze usage and manage costs.
- Securing the Workspace
In the composite environment IT has the challenge of securing workflows across the endpoint estate, regardless of delivery platform, and doing so without interfering with the employee experience. As the number of both installed and SaaS applications grows, IT teams can leverage automation to streamline patching and other security updates and to monitor SaaS credentials effectively. Automation becomes invaluable in operational efficiency across an increasingly complex application landscape.
Another security challenge is the existence of ‘Shadow SaaS’ in which employees, like shadow IT/AI, use unsanctioned tools they believe will help productivity. Solutions that can monitor SaaS and AI applications and spot rogue tools will support secure workflows as well as compliance and governance.
- Enlisting MSP Support
IT teams are under pressure to control budgets while delivering a successful employee experience in a diverse workspace environment. With AI initiatives dominating new budget items, the reality is internal IT teams won’t be getting additional budget for workspace management. A practical alternative is outsourcing via MSPs who can manage complex multi-environment setups, including Macs, Chromebooks, and PCs. MSPs can also help enterprises and SMBs to implement and manage integrated platforms, delivering the friction-free endpoint experiences employees want.
Workspace Evolution: Turning IT Challenges into Opportunities
IT teams have budget, technology, and changing workspace challenges to meet. With these challenges comes the opportunity to develop a more nimble and effective response approach to evolving trends, to improve the employee experience and to prove IT is ready to respond to the next change.
About the Author
Jed Ayres is the CEO of ControlUp. He is widely recognized for the transformational impact he is making on the end-user computing industry. Ayres has more than 20 years of technology experience and a wide range of industry experience across workspace management, virtualization, and mobility. Prior to joining ControlUp, he was the CEO at IGEL, where he drove the company’s successful pivot from a hardware-centric to a software-first company and was instrumental in its acquisition by TA Associates. Before that, he was the SVP of Worldwide Marketing for AppSense, where he helped the company rebrand and achieve significant growth prior to being acquired by Thoma Bravo and then integrated into Ivanti. Ayres was also CMO at MCPc, a $300m+ Solutions Provider in Cleveland that achieved rapid and sustained growth and was acquired by Logicalis. Before MCPc, he spent six years as SVP of Partner Management and Marketing at national solution provider MTM Technologies.
