{"id":28875,"date":"2019-09-10T11:35:06","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T10:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/?p=28875"},"modified":"2019-09-13T12:24:08","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T11:24:08","slug":"how-south-african-firms-can-use-the-cloud-to-drive-employee-enablement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2019\/09\/10\/how-south-african-firms-can-use-the-cloud-to-drive-employee-enablement\/","title":{"rendered":"How South African firms can use the cloud to drive employee enablement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ryan Jamieson, Solutions and Innovation Officer at Altron Karabina, takes a closer look at employee enablement becoming a business priority for the digital workplace.<\/strong>

Even though local organisations are starting to take employee enablement more seriously, there is still much work to be done to truly transform how staff work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Companies\nunderstand the need to better communicate with their employees beyond relying\non email or a laptop. This is especially critical in industries such as\nmedical, manufacturing and mining where people do not sit in front of their\ncomputers most of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately,\ninstant messaging platforms such as WhatsApp have grown in popularity to become\na standard mechanism of communication. In fact, the smartphone has become the\nplatform of choice for employee outreach. And thanks to its increased\naffordability, more South Africans than ever can afford to own one and remain\nin touch with the organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engaging\ndifferently<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nwhat is the difference between enablement and engagement?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simply\nput, enablement takes engagement to the next level where it revolves around\nempowering employees with training, development, and the skills needed to make\nmore informed decisions. In other words, email as a delivery mechanism is no\nlonger good enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nis where platforms, like Microsoft\u2019s Kaizala, start coming into their own.\nEmail will always fulfil a purpose, but employees and organisations require a\nmore instant way of reaching out to one another. Fundamentally, email has\nbecome less targeted. Just consider how much unnecessary communication arrives\nthrough this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npush content on mobile messaging groups are more targeted to people. For\nexample, there are office groups, home security groups, neighbourhood watch\ngroups, and school groups covering a myriad of sports and other activities.\nThis makes communication easier to file and prioritise where needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although\nWhatsApp has set the benchmark for South Africans when it comes to engagement,\nit still needs to address its inherent security, privacy, and broadcast\nchallenges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On\nthe other hand, a messaging platform for business use is highly secure and\ncontrolled by the organisation. However, neither solution\u2019s potential has yet\nbeen fully explored in the local market. For example, in India, messaging is not just used for\ncommunication, but also to purchase things, order food, check bus times, and so\non. An entire ecosystem is built around messaging platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evolving\nworkplace<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While\nsome local organisations are pushing for the digital enablement of their\nemployees, the country is still far behind what First World markets are doing.\nHowever, many of the features needed for a digital workplace only started\ncoming out in the past two years. So, the adoption rate is expected to increase\nsignificantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions\naround connectivity and data sovereignty used to hold local companies back.\nHowever, the arrival of Microsoft Azure data centres addresses these concerns.\nEducation will still remain important, especially around the benefits of the\nsolutions organisations are currently using.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An\nexample of this is Office 365. Organisations are still only scratching the\nsurface of its potential. They need to fully understand all the aspects around\nthe suite that can deliver employee enablement. Some staff might demand the use\nof Dropbox to share documents not knowing that OneDrive forms part of the\nOffice environment. It is a case of not realising the broader ecosystem and\nwhat is possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nwill also spill over to messaging platforms. Obviously, WhatsApp is widely\nadopted in the country, but it does not provide a secure and curated\nenvironment such as mobile messaging applications for business. These platforms\ncan reach out to a million people and provide a robust offering that extends\nbeyond messaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mobile\nmarket<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although\nthe cloud will help drive employee enablement, companies must be aware of how\nbest to use the technology. In Azure, for example, there are more than two\nthousand different combinations of options geared towards this enablement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthis context, an organisation must purchase a license set that brings with it\nthe most capabilities. By going the full Office 365 route as opposed to a\nlimited license, more value can be driven over a longer term. It is all about\nchoosing the right licence for the business workload.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nprocess must start with an audit to assess existing and future company needs.\nIt is especially the enterprise that can benefit from such an exercise given\nthe complexity of its environment. Smaller organisations typically know what\nthey want and focus on a more niche approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enablement\nwill be a business priority for the digital workplace. Using mobile platforms\nto drive this change by equipping employees with the tools and skills needed to\ndo their work more efficiently, will result in more agile organisations capable\nof adapting to the dynamic market conditions of the connected world. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ryan Jamieson, Solutions and Innovation Officer at Altron Karabina, takes a closer look at employee enablement becoming a business priority for the digital workplace. Even though local organisations are starting to take employee enablement more seriously, there is still much work to be done to truly transform how staff work.  Companies understand the need to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":28876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4950,182,6,275,10675,13,262],"tags":[8989,2137,5642,10966,433,10967,2110,6017,10965,6520],"class_list":["post-28875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-cloud","category-insights","category-intelligent-technology-newsletter","category-thought-leadership","category-top-stories","category-used","tag-altron-karabina","tag-digital-enablement","tag-dropbox","tag-employee-enablement","tag-microsoft-azure","tag-microsoft-kaizala","tag-office-365","tag-onedrive","tag-ryan-jamieson","tag-whatsapp"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28875"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28967,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28875\/revisions\/28967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}