Working environment 4.0

The workplace of the future is a hot topic right now. What exactly does it mean?

Today's situation looks like this: Duplicate work, non-transparent workflows, complicated systems – the challenges of everyday work in today's business environment are just as numerous as the requirements for the digital workplace. From process optimization and efficiency to user friendliness and employee motivation, different company departments have highly diverging perspectives of everyday cooperation, great expectations, and on occasion also excellent ideas. But the right methods and suitable tools that are required to implement these ideas as tangible solutions, which benefit the company and its employees, are often lacking.

With Microsoft SharePoint, we hand companies and employees a system that lets them manage all programs centrally. Sycor is the remote control programmer, assigning 
role-based functions to the individual employees. There is no need for the employee to know why they have to use this system or that one. This reduces costs, and users have much more time for creativity and innovation.

Can the workplace of the future be explained with the keywords collaboration and mobility, or does that fall short?

One would have to add communication as a keyword. Here, every customer has different needs. For some, communication may be a problematic area, while mobility is important for another company. The focus varies from company to company, but in general, these three topics are the key points for the workplace of the future or working environment 4.0. 

The Microsoft SharePoint solution as the basis for the workplace of the future has been around for some time now. What is new?

We mainly associate knowledge with the workplace of the future. Where is the knowledge and how can I access it? The knowledge factor is becoming more and more 
important and is decisive for the future. We support slim IT and deceleration of the working environment. We implement simpler processes and provide employees with greater freedom and leeway for creativity. For us, the Microsoft SharePoint solution does not take center stage. Really, it is about making work easier and having 
ready access to distributed information. This approach is quite unique.

To what extent is rethinking required in companies and in IT in order to meet future 
requirements?

Rethinking in IT is very important. The significance of IT or the IT department is decreasing. Services, on the other hand, are becoming increasingly important. This is because the needs of the specialist departments are coming to the foreground and have to be met. Which IT solution is behind that is really secondary. Solving the problem, taking away the pain, that is what counts. Increasingly, requirements are also going to come from the specialist departments - be it HR, Business Administration, or Marketing. 

Large corporate groups are already investing in the workplace of the future, but are SMEs ready for this topic too? Is this issue of interest for all companies and sectors?

Really, there aren't any companies that can afford not to respond to this, and to move towards the workplace of the future. Employees are confronted with the same problems and pain areas in every company and in every sector. This is why the need for working environment 4.0 and the Microsoft strategy applies to every company. The evolution cycle of the devices we use daily will ultimately force and speed up rethinking.