Unlocking the Modern Workplace with Zero Touch

How Zero Touch helps you meet changing user needs

You can’t modernize without
taking a new approach

While the pandemic has provided IT the impetus to accelerate the modernization of the workplace, it’s also highlighting a series of underlying challenges. IT teams are discovering that legacy solutions used to provision and ship workplace hardware are far too slow and dependent on physical proximity. Once a device is shipped, keeping it secure and up to date also relies on a variety of new techniques and approaches, suited to an all-remote workforce. Finally, IT must at every step keep an eye to creating engaging and seamless end-user experiences, reducing friction and empowering individuals at every step.

Zero Touch can be used to effectively address three end user computing challenges that often stand in the way of modernization:

Provisioning the all-remote enterprise
Enabling enrollment, security updates and ongoing management
Empowering users with flexibility and self-service

Read on to learn how Zero Touch can help overcome each of the hurdles above >>

Provisioning the all-remote enterprise

Challenge #1

Providing your workers with the right devices to get their job done has become a lot more complicated. Formerly, IT would order a batch of devices directly from the OEM or a partner, then wipe, image and deliver that device to end users. This set up phase included loading and configuring applications and enterprise-specific settings on all endpoints, such as enterprise directory configuration, security and management tools, and remote access/VPN software. Once the pandemic forced a wide-scale shift to remote working, IT needed to do all this, at distance. It was no easy feat:

IT faced an enormous spike in demand for mobile devices and peripherals, met by extreme shortages, supply chain issues and delays.
IT was required to set up, provision and drop ship devices direct to employees, or in a more controlled, centralized environment, to adhere to social distancing and shelter in place rules.
IT had weeks to refresh entire fleets of hardware – a process that would typically stretch over months and years.

While enterprise Windows 10 devices support modern management frameworks, fewer than 30% of Windows 10 endpoints are managed by such a method (with the majority managed via traditional PCLM systems).
[1] IDC, “Remote Workspace Management Strategies During COVID-19 Quarantine,” May 2020, US46254120

The Zero Touch Solution

To overcome these hurdles, businesses turn to zero touch over-the-air provisioning, a solution that allows IT to automatically populate devices with the correct configuration, user privileges, security controls, access and apps. Leveraging a partner such as SHI, or by coordinating directly with the OEM, IT can also have devices sent directly to employees’ homes, where they can self-provision and enroll the device into a corporate management structure.

Did you know?

Auto-setup capabilities are supported by personal computers and mobile devices across all major endpoint operating systems: macOS, iOS, ChromeOS, Android and, most recently, with Windows 10 devices. You can even use Zero Touch deployment with Oculus devices!

Enabling enrollment, security updates and ongoing management

Challenge #2

The new working reality is forcing organizations to re-evaluate another legacy practice in their PC lifecycle management: software updates and security patches. The old way of getting this done relied on physical presence in the office, behind a corporate firewall. End users would need to be plugged into the network through ethernet to complete mandatory software updates and security patches. Once again, the pandemic created a new working reality that makes this legacy approach unrealistic:

Users are no longer behind corporate firewalls.
Existing virtual private network infrastructure is not built for the entire workforce to log in, all at once.
Users have very little appetite for maintaining frustrating, time-consuming forced updates.

The Zero Touch Solution

With Zero Touch, today’s corporate mobile devices and workstations can be enrolled into mobile device management platforms, enabling security patches and software updates to be carried out automatically and invisibly in the background. Some devices can be preconfigured for a company's specific unified endpoint management platform for instant enrollment and management activation when the user completes the zero touch registration process. Once enrolled, IT can easily monitor and manage for secure and productive device usage.

Did you know?

The SHI Mobile multi-carrier LTE data solution enables over-the-air provisioning and ongoing connectivity without the need for a Wi-Fi or ethernet connections.

Empowering users with flexibility and self-service

Challenge #3

With IT having to serve its clients from a distance, the need to provide more flexibility and enhanced end-user experiences has hit a new high. Employees working at home have ready access to a variety of personal devices and accessories they already like to use. They are also living through an intense moment of changing workplace behaviors. To support both, IT needs to give users as much flexibility as possible. This involves granting more access to personal devices as needed while also streamlining set up, management and support. All of which is easier said than done for many IT teams:

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives and consumer devices have been slow to enter the workforce due to longstanding security concerns and management needs.
People began to adapt a new style of working while balancing a stressful and ever-changing landscape at home.
Getting a corporate device to end users, on time, is not always practical or feasible.
Users are not always connected to Wi-Fi and many are working on-the-go.

The Zero Touch Solution

Zero Touch also makes it possible for IT to easily and securely give end users the tools they need to thrive in this new remote-working reality. Using the same provisioning, enrollment, and management approaches, Zero Touch can introduce employee personal devices and accessories into the corporate network. With it, IT can give users access to pre-configured, “containerized” applications, delivered directly via corporate-controlled enrollment platforms. And by partnering with a solutions provider like SHI, organizations have several other flexible solutions, including self-service portals to help end users select and enroll their own devices, and SHI Mobile to enable secure, multi-carrier connections over LTE, letting them safely access core business applications, from anywhere, without a Wi-Fi connection.

Did you know?

IT can also mitigate exposure to risk with BYOD by using advanced identity and access management principles, such as multifactor authentication and rigorous self-serve password requirements.