The New Workplace

1. 

   Published May 22th, 2011 by Kjeld Kerssemeeckers

Work anywhere, anytime

The New Workplace (in proper Dutch: Het Nieuwe Werken) promises flexible work hours to employees. It enables so-called Knowledge Workers to work anywhere they want, anytime they want.

IT vendors jump on this bandwagon to promote their products. Because in order to work anywhere, you need their solutions, they say. Makes sense. I would be lying if I said we haven't used the same sales pitch ourselves.

The real story

I think the real story is that the old way of selling and delivering IT products to enterprise users has come to an end, and that The New Workplace is simply picking at the same wound. In the consumer world, the Internet has ravaged the traditional models. Traditional IT hardware stores for buying laptops and PCs—gone. Traditional IT software stores for buying software-gone. The recent success of the App Stores has shown that online shopping is the only viable model for selling and delivering applications to mobile devices.

And in the enterprise world? Most IT departments sell and deliver their products in the same manner they have for years. When an employee needs something—a laptop, a piece of software—he needs to contact a help desk to put in his request. His order is then passed to an IT person, who orders what is needed, and then hours or days later, delivers it to the employee.

We need to wake up and get with the program in the enterprise world. And it's fine by me if The New Workplace story helps us to get there faster.