Joy Johnson, Head of Client Services and Operations for the UK and US at Intelliworx, the IT consultants, discusses how going virtual is helping UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) significantly reduce costs, enhance their cybersecurity and boost productivity.

The UK’s smaller businesses are constantly seeking innovative ways to cut costs, enhance security and improve employee productivity, with many starting to adopt virtual desktops to achieve this.

A virtual desktop, like Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD), resembles and feels like a physical workstation, but unlike physical machines, it operates in a virtual environment.

By leveraging cloud-based infrastructure, such as virtual desktops, organisations are eliminating the need for significant upfront investments in physical servers, desktops, and other hardware components. This significantly reduces capital expenditure and ongoing maintenance costs.

Here we look at how businesses across a wide range of sectors are enhancing their security, boosting productivity and improving their operations by going virtual.

The security provided by virtual desktops

Virtual desktops such as AVD provide robust security features, such as multi-factor authentication, conditional access policies, and encryption, to protect sensitive data. This helps SMEs comply with industry regulations and mitigate security risks.

For example, one financial services firm we worked with strengthened its security posture by implementing AVD. By leveraging AVD’s advanced security features, the firm was able to protect sensitive financial data from cyber threats, ensuring compliance with strict industry regulations like GDPR. This enabled them to meet strict compliance standards and protect customer data.

Meanwhile an education institution Intelliworx had partnered with managed to improve its data security by using AVD to secure student records and faculty credentials. By centralising the management of user access and implementing strong security controls, the institution could safeguard sensitive student information, reducing the risk of data breaches and protecting the institution’s reputation. This helped them maintain student privacy and prevent unauthorised access.

Empowering remote workforces to boost productivity

Virtual desktops also empower remote workforces by providing secure and reliable access to business applications and data from any device and location. This enhances employee productivity and flexibility.

We helped a non-profit organisation increase employee productivity by 20% by enabling remote work with AVD. By providing employees with the flexibility to work remotely, the organisation was able to attract and retain top talent, reduce absenteeism, and improve work-life balance. This allowed them to hire talent from a wider pool and reduce office space costs.

In addition, we enabled a real estate agency to improve productivity by 15% by providing them with secure remote access to client information and property listings through AVD. By enabling agents to work remotely and access critical information from anywhere, the agency improved their efficiency and responsiveness, leading to increased sales and better customer service. This improved agent productivity and allowed them to better serve their clients.

Getting rid of hardware by moving to the cloud

By leveraging cloud-based infrastructure, virtual desktops eliminate the need for significant upfront investments in physical servers, desktops, and other hardware components. This significantly reduces capital expenditure and ongoing maintenance costs.

For example, one manufacturing company managed to streamline its IT infrastructure by consolidating multiple physical servers into a single virtual desktop environment. By centralising their IT resources, they reduced the need for redundant hardware and simplified maintenance tasks. This reduced hardware costs by 30% and improved overall system performance.

Meanwhile, a mid-sized law firm reduced its hardware costs by 40% by transitioning to AVD. Instead of purchasing and maintaining expensive workstations for each lawyer, they could provide them with secure access to their virtual desktops from any device, anywhere. This enabled them to allocate more budget to strategic initiatives like business development and client acquisition.

By harnessing the power of virtual desktops, businesses can significantly reduce IT costs, enhance security and empower their remote workforces. This can ultimately help SMEs optimise resource utilisation, scale infrastructure on demand and ensure business continuity, which are becoming all the more important in today’s challenging business landscape.