The modern workplace is in the middle of a transition—a digital transformation—where your organization, your users, and your customers are more connected and mobile than ever. Successfully navigating this digital transformation is likely one of your highest priorities. You need to help your organization create a modern workplace where employees can use innovative devices to engage customers and collaborate with partners; where they (and you) can optimize operations, improve security, and transform your products. However, you face incredible challenges in creating that modern workplace. Employees now expect access to productivity and collaboration tools anytime and anywhere. Your on-premises environment has become more complex than ever, especially as you extend that environment to the cloud. Your tried-and-true tools and processes struggle to keep up with your changing needs. The challenges are not just internal. You’re also facing more external threats, from cannier bad guys and competitors that are always setting the bar higher.

You can address these challenges and begin your transition to a modern workplace and a modern desktop when you adopt Microsoft Surface and modern management. A modern desktop includes Windows 10, the operating system designed for a modern desktop; Office 365 ProPlus, the latest and most secure suite of productivity apps and services; and Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS), the simplest solution for managing devices and keeping them up to date.

A modern desktop is the most productive, most secure desktop environment with the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO). Because it’s built for a modern desktop, Surface amplifies the benefits of moving to a modern desktop. In fact, it’s the best device for achieving your modern desktop goals.

Let’s review what we mean by modern management. We can start by describing traditional IT management. Traditional management assumes every device you manage is owned by the organization and is connected to your on-premises network. You have some control over the available device options to help you manage the time and costs of creating custom OS images for the devices you support and to help you ensure a good end user experience. You use Group Policy to lock down how each user operates the single device assigned to them. Meanwhile, you struggle to keep up with growing security threats and the increasing speed with which operating systems and application software change. As a result, you are always reacting instead of being proactive. You want to act on strategic initiatives that add value to your organization instead of spending time on tasks and processes that could be automated with the cloud.

You’re hearing about it from your users, too. They’re now accustomed to the smart phone and app model of devices and software, with continuously introduced new capabilities and their choice of easy, intuitive devices and apps. They expect to bring their own devices from home and work from a variety of devices. When you provide them with a device, they want the startup experience to feel just as seamless as when they open the box for a phone or tablet they bought for personal use. They want more self-service options and the ability to help each other. They don’t want to have to adapt their workstyle to the technology you provide—they want the technology to adapt to their workstyle.

Modern management embraces your users’ needs and the changing environment. You can not only handle the fact that users have multiple devices, but you can also quickly get their new devices up-and-running with minimal interaction from your team. Setup is automatic and self-serviced. Updates are quick and painless for both your team and your users. You can also easily manage devices from the cloud-based services, wherever the devices are physically located. Modern management is the foundation of the modern workplace. By adopting new approaches to IT management, including cloud technologies, you can simplify management, improve security, and provide better user experiences while lowering TCO.

Of course, making the change to modern management isn’t always easy. You’re already invested in your current infrastructure, and, unfortunately, legacy IT processes and hardware continue to be the biggest blockers to transitioning to modern management. While Microsoft has built great management features into Windows 10—it is the first OS to have full mobile device management capabilities built-in, for example—if your device manufacturer doesn’t embrace modern management and take advantage of those capabilities, you can’t realize the full potential of the transformation to modern management.
Surface offers modern hardware and software that is built to take advantage of all the management capabilities of Windows 10. It’s reliable, secure, and easy to deploy and manage. You can use Surface to lead your transformation efforts so you and your organization can experience the greatest return on your digital transformation experience.

Of course, making the change to modern management isn’t always easy. You’re already invested in your current infrastructure, and, unfortunately, legacy IT processes and hardware continue to be the biggest blockers to transitioning to modern management. While Microsoft has built great management features into Windows 10—it is the first OS to have full mobile device management capabilities built-in, for example—if your device manufacturer doesn’t embrace modern management and take advantage of those capabilities, you can’t realize the full potential of the transformation to modern management.
Surface offers modern hardware and software that is built to take advantage of all the management capabilities of Windows 10. It’s reliable, secure, and easy to deploy and manage. You can use Surface to lead your transformation efforts so you and your organization can experience the greatest return on your digital transformation experience.