Conversations From the CIO Road

Lately I’ve been spending a lot more of my time meeting CIOs at their offices to help solve their communications challenges. It’s an opportunity to separate myself from the day-to-day business and tackle some real life issues. Since I can entrench myself in our customers’ worlds and focus on their specific needs, I’ve gained new insights on some interesting topics.

Most recently, I visited a major insurance company in New Jersey to discuss how IT can be more than a cost center for the business. They are repurposing investments in PCs and Windows software in order to move to a virtualized infrastructure – and it’s beginning to pay dividends.

While this was a big enterprise, we see many businesses running into similar challenges–regardless of their size. With many independent silos within their business, companies are having a hard time keeping up with the refresh cycles of PCs and operating systems. Instead, they’re developing BYOD strategies.

By doing so, enterprises can focus on providing the infrastructure and applications to push to the devices and worry less about provisioning and hardware updates. This streamlined approach to IT is compelling, and we see more and more companies move towards a “supply your own device” model to take advantage of its advanced agility. Furthermore, employees are happier using the devices they want.

In this same light, companies need to ensure they create a comprehensive BYOD strategy. BYOD solutions that provide better security and management by extending throughout the infrastructure; allowing people to communicate via voice, video and the Web through all their devices and access their apps without necessarily using a VPN are essential. This streamlined collaboration approach allows all of our customers’ applications, devices and environments to seamlessly work together.

I’m excited about helping our customers create a BYOD and UC solution that enables face-to-face meetings without the travel being necessary. A well-developed BYOD strategy needs to be available that addresses business, IT and employee needs – where real-time-communications come together – regardless of device, location, network, etc.

Look for more updates from customers, partners and others as I travel to meet them and share my Conversations from the Road.