How can small businesses benefit from desktop virtualisation?

It’s a challenge for any organisation to stay up to date with the ever-changing nature of technology but this is particularly a problem for small to medium businesses (SMBs). Often having very limited budgets and a lack of dedicated IT personnel, it‘s easy to understand why many struggle to keep on top of the latest IT solutions. Personal computers have enabled increased productivity in SMBs, however the PC landscape has been changing over the last three to four years. The adoption of tablets as an additional computing platform has grown rapidly. In parallel, the workforce has been getting more mobile, with employees asking for solutions that enable them to work from anywhere. Therefore it’s no wonder that SMBs are now looking for viable alternatives to the traditional PC and this is where desktop virtualisation comes into its element, offering both a modern and cost-effective solution. Desktop virtualisation delivers all the computer performance, manageability and security required for businesses to remain competitive in today's market with significant cost savings compared to buying and maintaining PCs.

A recent study from Spiceworks Inc. into the State of IT for SMBs surveyed over 1,350 IT professionals from companies around the world with fewer than 1,000 employees. One of the key trends it showed is an increase in IT budgets, as well as continued rapid adoption of virtualisation technology, cloud services and tablets in the workplace.

Almost 25 percent of respondents from the "State of SMB IT 2H 2012" survey revealed that they already use desktop virtualisation within their businesses. A further 16 percent said they are considering adopting the technology within the next six months.

These findings are particularly intriguing as they represent both a need for and growing shift towards modern computing solutions, as the use of tablets and leveraging the cloud continue to rocket. Furthermore, the survey puts SMB IT budgets under the spotlight, having reached a high point - £100,000 on average, which is an increase of 13 percent from last year, despite respondents saying they don’t have any plans to add to IT personnel. This is noteworthy as research from Gartner Inc. shows that 60 percent of SMB IT executives say that over the past three years they have suffered from a lack of IT staff despite anticipated growth in IT budgets.

Unsurprisingly, desktop virtualisation is a valid choice for SMBs, particularly as IT budgets are expected to grow and accommodate BYOD and cloud office environments. This is at the same time as staff sizes to manage the environments remain unchanged. The primary advantages of desktop virtualisation to SMBs are as follows:

Decline in IT costs

Managing multiple individual PCs, desktops and handheld devices is a time-consuming and costly burden on IT departments. In fact, Gartner Inc. recently put the annual total cost of ownership (TCO) of an unmanaged PC (where users can install their own applications and little to no desktop management tools are being used) at in excess of £3,000.

Updating entire systems can prove to be a major headache for IT personnel. Rather than having to update individual workstations and employee devices one at a time, desktop virtualisation technology can be used to control and make system-wide updates and upgrades from a single centralised source quickly and efficiently. This means they can free up valuable time to spend on more pressing projects thanks to a streamlining of IT. A long term advantage is an overall reduction in administrative and maintenance costs, which increase over time in line with company growth.

Better management of security and compliance mandates

Security and compliance are major concerns for SMBs when it comes to managing their end users and for good reason. A key example of this is the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, who has reported the loss of over 12,000 laptops per week at U.S. airports. This loss of business-critical information is a very real threat especially for industries within the financial services, healthcare and government.

Moving data off of end points and into the datacentre, where it can be more efficiently and securely managed with desktop virtualisation, means SMBs are in a much better position to meet security and compliance mandates. In comparison to a traditional desktop, a virtualised alternative is more secure given that its data never leaves the datacentre. This results in a dramatic decrease in vulnerability and data loss.

Greater employee efficiency

Desktop virtualisation’s impact on overall employee productivity is also an interesting consideration. Typically, a desktop machine going down means lost productivity as that employee has to wait around for the workstation to be repaired.

However, thanks to desktop virtualisation, IT personnel are able to get the user back up and running on a new instance of their original virtual desktop. IT can deliver the same desktop to a different device immediately, meaning the user is not kept from getting on with their work when IT problems occur. What’s more, given that desktop virtualisation supports BYOD devices such as laptops, tablets and smartphones, IT is able to support the demand for a virtual working environment and immediate access to information. Employees can now securely work from anywhere, at anytime and from any device. This is a win-win. Users have more flexibility and IT has more control over the computing environment.

SMB’s IT demands are increasing in order to support business growth, but staff sizes are expected to remain the same. Herein lies the key challenge for them and now is as good time as ever to consider desktop virtualisation to get the best out of available resources. To get ahead of the fierce competition, SMBs can look to desktop virtualisation to streamline IT processes and enhance employee productivity in today's evolving BYOD world.