* Impeding telecommuting and BYOD: While the workforce has grown increasingly mobile, many IT organizations are hindering productivity outside the office because they lack the ability to manage and support devices beyond their network. As a result, when employees have an IT issue or need to provision their personal device for work, they have to bring their device into the office.
Additionally, some IT teams are wasting significant time and money traveling to various sites to install new applications or updates. This will only become more costly and further impede productivity as the workforce grows more mobile, so adopting technology to do these things remotely should be top of mind for all companies that have yet to do so.
* Lack of knowledge sharing: Many IT departments don't do enough to share knowledge among and between their teams, which means end-users are often stuck waiting for an extremely busy expert to fix their problem. Numerous technologies enable reps to do things like record a complex support session so junior staff can learn from its resolution, implement an internal wiki for resource sharing or foster better real-time collaboration so less experienced staff can learn new skills in tandem with solving end-user issues.
A new year always brings a sense of renewal and enthusiasm. I encourage IT leaders to consider the above criteria and make the necessary changes to better position their department and, in turn, the company as a whole for greater success in 2013 and beyond.
Bryan Hood is solution engineer for remote support software provider Bomgar.
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