Did you know that your entertainment habits today may be influencing the way you think about work? Every day, our entertainment landscape is experiencing radical and exciting changes.
The latest buzz involves cloud gaming. Telecommunication operators have been vying to include this new entertainment option in their offerings to consumers, a trend which has been gaining speed across the region.
Coupled with the fact that nearly 200 million people have increased consumption of video streaming services across Southeast Asia, it is clear that we are adjusting quickly to this new era of virtual leisure, and are hungry for more.
Take the example of the movie experience. Instead of visiting a movie theatre to indulge in entertainment, a digital, on-demand ecosystem now provides the experience when and where people want to consume it.
See also: Redesigning the organisation for a hybrid work future
Think online movie rentals and streaming platforms like Netflix and HBO which offer a wide array of choices for avid film buffs to tune in as and when. The ubiquitous ability to consume content has led to major behavioural shifts, making older distribution systems like hotel in-room movies obsolete and impacting long-standing upstream distribution models.
This paradigm shift to on-demand entertainment has primed us for an era of on-demand everything, including the office experience.
The rise of the on-demand office
In the corporate world, we have witnessed a similar evolution in where and how we work. Today, the on-demand office model repositions work from a fixed location to a consumable activity, accessible anywhere at any time.
While companies have in the past half-heartedly tried to gamify their processes to increase productivity, the entertainment sector is now inspiring more meaningful change and providing other industries with a framework for improvement.
The models established in the entertainment industry are providing a clear signpost of what we can expect with the future of work. With no more than a screen and an internet connection, videos can be streamed anywhere at any time. These flexible and virtual arrangements of working, collaborating, and operating have become the standard over the past year.
Though long-touted, remote work never gained mainstream adoption. Until the Covid-19 pandemic, it was a curiosity reserved for executives, mobile employees, and a few forward-thinking companies.
However, with the rush to enable work from home for entire industries, business and technology leaders are now considering its long-term impact on the future of work.
Whatever the industry, companies must realise that technology will be central to this new way of working. They must also account for the shifting expectations employees have about what constitutes the on-demand workplace.
Research by professional services firm EY reveals that six in ten employees in Southeast Asia are likely to quit their current role post-pandemic if they are not offered continued flexibility in where and when they work.
Remote work has become an increasingly significant priority for many, and companies that are able to capitalise on its true promise will thus reap the rewards of faster innovation and growth, as well as higher employee retention and satisfaction.
It is not hard to imagine that the next generation of talent will appraise future employers based on their technical savviness and ability to adapt working systems to modern expectations.
Adapting to unpredictability with cloud
Behind the scenes, solutions including the cloud, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and Desktop-as-a-Service have been instrumental in powering revamped work models. This has rung true even in the most conservative industries where remote work was considered an unprecedented arrangement prior to the pandemic.
Longstanding fears around security and the performance of applications used remotely have historically held back large corporations such as automobile manufacturer Toyota from allowing staff to work from outside the office. But Covid-19 forced a dramatic change in mindset and a reassessment of technology-enabled flexibility.
To navigate current challenges, Toyota built a VDI environment to support high-performance applications and design software, ultimately shaping a new way of working. Through this virtual-first approach, teams now have the option of presenting 3D design models and have phased-out paper drawings, contributing to more fruitful discussions.
Similarly, the financial services industry has been under immense pressure to pivot its operations. Banks such as RBL Bank, for instance, relied on cloud computing to leverage its remote management capabilities for employees, making it significantly easier to ramp up end-user computing if employees needed to work from home.
In the heat of the pandemic, the bank was also able to focus on serving its customers during call centre surges, successfully reducing their customer service tickets by 99% after eliminating IT downtime.
Embracing the new era
There is no doubt that the pandemic has ushered in the on-demand office era indefinitely, which has at its heart a work-from-anywhere model.
With remote work here to stay, companies that do not go all-in on adopting remote work solutions will fall behind, operating with less flexibility than more progressive competitors.
Businesses need to fully embrace the on-demand office to truly gain an economic advantage. Only in doing so can they guarantee future success in everything — from talent recruitment to improving operational efficiency.
Ho Chye Soon is the Singapore country manager at Nutanix.
Photo: Nutanix
