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IT Pros Feel the Pressure as Chief Executives and #GenMobile Employees Demand Mobile-Ready, Collaborative WorkplacesSUNNYVALE, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Aruba Networks (News - Alert) (NASDAQ: ARUN) today revealed a new global study highlighting that seven in ten (70%) IT professionals are under increasing pressure to deliver and support an all-wireless workplace from their top executives and #GenMobile employees who are demanding greater flexibility and better collaboration. Building on a recent mobile worker study, Aruba surveyed 1,000 global IT professionals to understand how they are managing #GenMobile employees, and simultaneously commissioned The Future Laboratory, a renowned trend-forecasting consultancy, to conduct a separate, but related, study which examines how the workplace will look in the near future. Both studies suggest that the creation of an agile, all-wireless workplace is no longer an option, but a requirement. In addition to a significant competitive advantage, business leaders now recognize that the benefits of this approach include employee retention, productivity, and cost savings. However, the results highlight that today just 14% of employees enjoy the flexibility and freedom of such a workplace, suggesting that global businesses still have a lot of work to do. Managing #GenMobile: Key findings
"Executives and #GenMobile employees alike prefer an increasingly mobile style of working and IT organizations are feeling the pressure to adapt existing technology investments to meet their requirements," said Ben Gibson, chief marketing officer for Aruba Networks. "The workplace of the future will not only need to be rightsized to align with IT budgets but it will also require a mobility-centric and secure wireless infrastructure, a move towards employee self-service, and a willingness to embrace consumer IT technologies to enhance #GenMobile productivity." Mobile Technology Investment - 2013/2014 The chart below highlights how IT investments for mobility technologies have changed over the past year.
Aruba customer, Russell Hookway, Network and Telecommunications Manager at Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, a large municipality in west London, commented: "Technology should be an enabler for our staff. Across our council, employees are now actively choosing a 'mobile-first' working model, because it makes them more efficient. Creating an environment that supports this model makes good business sense. Our new message to workers is work where you want, when you want and how you want. No questions asked." The survey results show that mobility is a highly desirable productivity tool but not at the expense of corporate or personal security. When IT professionals were asked about security concerns as they relate to mobility, 73.5% assessed mobility security requirements based on the devices' security features or the employees' mobile work requirements. Only 13.3% responded that security concerns have stopped them from allowing mobile work capabilities for #GenMobile employees. "Businesses are starting to realize the clear benefits of mobility," Gibson continued. "It's now essential they make the right investment decisions to secure the business and employee." An Outlook: The Future Workplace According to The Future Laboratory's report, the term "office" will become obsolete as a new model for work emerges. The emerging workplace will facilitate a flexible work culture in a society where the nine to five workday is increasingly the exception rather than the rule. The modern workplace will be a hub with a blend of business/leisure travelers, shared workspaces and flexible work environments. "New technologies and new ways of doing business are irreversibly transforming the way we design offices as well as the way we fundamentally think of workspaces," said The Future Laboratory co-founder, Chris Sanderson. "Cloud-based technologies and the increased use of mobile devices as our work tools of choice are ushering in a new social, cultural and corporate paradigm where workplaces are more federated and collaborative, less hierarchical and increasingly less location-specific, as more of #GenMobile employees clock in by logging on." "We are no longer simply business people at work and private people at home," said Martin Lindstrom, author and brand futurist. "People are checking personal emails at work and work emails at home. The lines between work and play are merging on all levels." To read more, download the The Future Laboratory's report via this link: http://www.arubanetworks.com/futuresreport Additional Resources
About Aruba Networks, Inc. Aruba Networks is a leading provider of next-generation network access solutions for the mobile enterprise. The company designs and delivers Mobility-Defined Networks that empower IT departments and #GenMobile, a new generation of tech-savvy users who rely on their mobile devices for every aspect of work and personal communication. To create a mobility experience that #GenMobile and IT can rely upon, Aruba Mobility-Defined Networks™ automate infrastructure-wide performance optimization and trigger security actions that used to require manual IT intervention. The results are dramatically improved productivity and lower operational costs. Listed on the NASDAQ and Russell 2000® Index, Aruba is based in Sunnyvale, California, and has operations throughout the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific regions. To learn more, visit Aruba at http://www.arubanetworks.com. For real-time news updates follow Aruba on Twitter and Facebook, and for the latest technical discussions on mobility and Aruba products visit Airheads Social at http://community.arubanetworks.com. © 2014 Aruba Networks, Inc. Aruba Networks' trademarks include Aruba Networks®, Aruba The Mobile Edge (News - Alert) Company® (stylized), Aruba Mobility-Defined Networks™, Aruba Mobility Management System®, People Move Networks Must Follow®, Mobile Edge Architecture®, RFProtect®, Green Island®, ETips®, ClientMatchTM, Virtual Intranet AccessTM, ClearPass Access Management SystemsTM, Aruba InstantTM, ArubaOSTM, xSecTM, ServiceEdgeTM, Aruba ClearPass Access Management SystemTM, AirmeshTM, AirWave (News - Alert)TM, Aruba CentralTM, and "ARUBA@WORKTM. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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