Virtual Office Resource

Before yesterday’s grand opening of the exhibition hall on day two of ITEXPO 2015, Paco Contreras, Director of WW Product Marketing of Microsoft (News - Alert), delivered the day’s final keynote.

During the visionary and engaging keynote, Contreras made one thing clear: the future of the workplace is geared toward co-creation and people-centric technologies. In fact, Contreras kicked off his presentation by exploring a critical movement within the workplace that is ultimately dictating the future of the workplace as we know it. This change in the workplace is derived from the increasing surge of millennials.

Contreras described how exactly this generation is impacting the way Microsoft is building new workplace technologies. For instance, millennials are mobile, always moving, collaborative, and technical savvy. Therefore, the workplace must pivot to adapt to these changes.

In essence, Contreras leveraged the habits of millennials to position the discussion on the future of the workplace as we know it. “Millennials come to the job with a number of devices,” he said. “They know about you before they even come to the job interview. What’s more, they are very, very vocal and unafraid of exposing an idea that is not perfect.”  These are all fascinating changes that are emerging in the workplace.

As such, organizations must adopt technologies which can enable the workplace to transcend cubicles walls and become an entity that workers can access no matter their location or the time of day. The workplace should also provide intuitive capabilities—i.e., video conferencing, file sharing and more.

Contreras proceeded to explain that the cloud is built for this new workplace environment which requires instantaneous, multichannel communication. The decision to break down the barriers between consumer-centric and workplace communication platforms, in creating Skype (News - Alert) for Business, enabled Microsoft to create a more seamless workplace environment that can be defined as a dynamic network as opposed to a traditional static hierarchy.

Our very own Senior Editor of TMCnet, Peter Bernstein, offered his insights after this compelling session: “In the two sessions I moderated earlier during ITEXPO (News - Alert) I asked, is Skype for Business a game changer in the enterprise? The answer is yes,” he said. “Between the encryption that it’s offering, the tool boxes it’s offering along with a great deal of interoperability it is truly changing the real-time unified communications and collaboration landscape.”

Indeed, the future of the workplace is slated to become increasingly collaborative, creative, and mobile. Today, day three of ITEXPO 2015, attendees are bound to gain more impactful insights such as these, stay tuned for more!