Podcast How Apple Helps Your Remote Team Be Productive and Engaged
Having a productive and satisfied workforce heavily depends on providing preferred and high-performing tech.
By Insight Editor / 15 Sep 2021 / Topics: Devices Hybrid workforce
By Insight Editor / 15 Sep 2021 / Topics: Devices Hybrid workforce
Employees today expect employers to provide the most up-to-date IT tools so they can be productive from anywhere. And in today’s competitive talent market, companies that offer employee choice in technology have the upper hand. In this TechTalk episode, Vincent Casale and Stephen Moss discuss the reasons why 72% of workers prefer Mac computers, the excitement around the new M1 Mac silicone chip and all the ways Insight can support your company’s Mac fleet.
To experience this week’s episode, listen on the player above, watch the conversation below, or scroll down to read a complete transcript. You can also subscribe to Insight TechTalk on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Audio transcript:
Stephen
Good afternoon, I'm Stephen Moss and I lead the Insight Connected Workforce service organization. I'm joined by Vincent Casale, from part of our Apple alliances team. Vincent's one of the most talented services biz and developers I know, and he talks all things Apple, so great to have you here today, Vincent. How are you doing?
Vincent
Good, Stephen, how are you?
Stephen
Doing well. Doing well.
Vincent
And I just want to thank you for letting me be able to, you know, share the stage or floor with you. And I appreciate the opportunity to dive a little bit deeper into this discussion today. So given your stature within the organization, I would love to learn what you're seeing in regards to different verticals and different areas of the business.
Stephen
Wow, that's great. Great. Well, you went straight to it, man. I love it. That's what I love about you. Nothing but business. So, you know, it's interesting, you know, I'm talking to CIOs and CFOs and leaders in our client organizations all the time, but I can tell you what, where everyone's at today is about just getting the best productivity possible out of the workforce and doing it in every way possible. We're all in kind of this anywhere, work from home, work from anywhere state. And so, everything about getting devices deployed, get them functional and making sure their workforces are productive, you know, day and night, whenever they even want to work, right? You started looking at it, a lot of people think about, "Hey, do I work nine to five?" or whatever, that's changed dramatically. And so just getting that accomplished through zero-touch services, getting device out to the client, end user community and making them productive out of the chute is so, so important. So, you know, when you think about where you work, Vincent, and you think about what you focus on in the Apple and the Apple alliances team for us, given your expertise in what you focus on, tell me a little bit more about what you think that means in terms of the M1 Mac. There's so much excitement about Apple being in the Silicon business. Can you tell me a little bit about how that relates to where we're going and what we're talking about with anywhere work?
Vincent
Absolutely, and we certainly have seen that paradigm shift to the office worker, remote worker, what that includes now, and it's being able to, you know, take that device anywhere, anytime and be able to work. But I'm glad that you asked about the M1 chip as well, because there's certainly a lot of excitement around that. And there's certainly a lot of differentiators when it comes to that chip itself. There's a few that I want to bring though, top of mind that I think really set it apart from what else is out there. And when we get into the performance metrics of the M1 Mac, it's that 3.5 times faster CPU, that six times faster GPU and the 15 times faster machine learning capabilities. And this is all compared to the previous Mac models that Apple had released. So, you can see that that stretch and that productivity and how they're able to fast-forward all of that information on to that single chip, it really is quite amazing. And also, what we're seeing as well is, you know, a lot of hardware is taking weeks to get delivered. So, what we did here is we actually took a stocking or inventory availability on all Apple devices. So, across all of those endpoints for Apple, to make sure that we can cut down on some of those lead times that we're currently seeing within the environment today. And we're also seeing clients take advantage of our best-in-class services.
So, whether that's professional services, managed services and even our lab integration services, we're definitely that differentiator, that super solutions integrator from an Apple perspective. And when I talk about those professional and managed services, I want to talk about managed endpoint for a little bit. And what this is, is that expert administration security and maintenance of your mobile endpoints. So that ongoing support by our certified engineers to help you on that path to modernization. And we can also flex into our service desk as well, which is our integrated custom and enterprise great end user support that can deliver that L1 through L3 capability. And of course, device lifecycle, the comprehensive hardware and asset management piece, including the end of life. So, taking advantage of our asset centralization program, leveraging our warehouses and national repair center. And then also that pre-deployment configuration solution, which is based out of our advanced integration labs is really meant to help minimize the downtime with the zero-touch provisioning and full configuration of those Apple devices.
Stephen
Wow. Vincent, you just loaded the wagon up, man. That's phenomenal. I love it. Great capability when we're talking about the M1 Mac specifically, I think that's phenomenal. And I think that's an incredibly important point, because when you think about the environment you and I live in right now, the ability to have better GPU, a better CPU, a better capability in the hands of, you know, our clients, but most importantly, their productive workforce working, again, from typically homes, different places like that. You know, I think that's a great point that we're taking a stocking position. We have the services in-house including professional managed and especially the product life cycle, so we can get this in the hands of the client. So why don't we take them along that, taking those things together, what are you seeing in the marketplace right now? You know, given the M1 chip and performance and especially for the hybrid workforce and the remote workforce clients, what are you hearing, what are you seeing? What are they picking out, the most important for them? Why are they making the M1 Mac their choice?
Vincent
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question and I can certainly go on for the next half hour about that, but I will try and minimize that time to really hammer home on the anywhere, hybrid office worker. They can look forward to many different things from that M1 chip and that's the extended battery life, you know, the overall connectivity and the overall improved device quality. So, when we speak about the battery life, you know, two times longer battery life, and that's important for these workers when they're working from anywhere at any time, and they might not have the availability to plug in. So, the Mac notebooks actually have that built in advanced energy saving technology that's going to extend that battery life to last through their entire workday. So, I know those workers are breathing a sigh of relief right now, but then also comes down to the easy connectivity. So, you know, a lot of people are used to those lagging video calls and distracting background noises, and really trying to decipher those blurry visuals. But that's certainly not the case with this new M1 Mac loaded into the environment.
Stephen
Yeah, I think for me, that's fantastic. I know when I talk to folks in leadership and we talk about the disruption of end-user computing, things changing, but I think what's most important, on top of mind from everything is how do they have a great experience? How do we not only make sure the devices are in the hands of the employees to do their best work possible, but you know, how do we actually make them more productive in terms of that? So, when you think about collaboration, I mean, you think about, you know, even mine and your conversation today, this is where a lot of us are working, right? You know, we're doing this in many places. So, can you talk a little bit more about that? I mean, is there a particular horizontal, or I should say vertical, or is this more of a horizontal fit? Where does this fit in industry, right? A lot of times we think about a product, and we go, "Oh, well, it fits in this industry or that industry." Can you talk to me a little bit more and our audience about how the M1 for Mac is fitting into the equation here? You know, you talked about battery life and things like that. Is there any particular pattern you've seen this far?
Vincent
Of course, I wish there was a rhyme or reason, but it's across all different industries, verticals, territories that there's a constant need for IT to really help and assist and support that engagement from a productivity, collaboration and overall work standpoint. Employers are expected now by their employees to really provide those up-to-date versions of the IT tools that they need to be productive and to complete their daily work task. So, these are often two factors that we see that are the driving force of why these companies are updating their tech fleet while ultimately ensuring that modern IT solutions are in play to support those functions. And I mean it when I say, I truly believe that, you know, one of the latest and greatest innovations to hit that market and to really capture the attention of all businesses and enterprise is that M1. So that first system on a chip developed by Apple, specifically for the Mac, which is making headlines, as you know, and there's a couple of surveys too, you know, the first one being that Jamf survey that was recently launched, and 72% of workers in that survey prefer to use Mac computers. And they're seeing conclusive evidence of improved productivity, creativity, and collaboration. And you know once those juices get flowing, you know, the work is endless. So, we want to see more of that, but there's also another article as well. And this is from the IDC program VP, and it went into the Mac growth and what he's currently seen amongst the Mac users, along with the iOS, iPadOS and tvOS, the growth has been astronomical. And, you know, considering the range of Mac devices available, from the M1 MacBook Air to the MacBook Pro, it's really not surprising to see these devices end up in corporate environments and end up in organizations across the board. And this has also created quite an interesting challenge for corporate IT to really try and resemble those consumer-like experiences. But we're noticing a lot of the organizations actually lack those resources for procuring the device configuring, deploying and really supporting those mobile endpoints for the foreseeable future.
Stephen
Yeah, it's a great point, Vincent. I mean, when you look at it, the workplace is undergoing massive changes in the last 18 months. And I don't think that pace of change is over, right? I mean, I know many people are like, "Oh, well, this is a new style of work," but I think changing the amount of fragmented ways that we all work, it was a very traditional approach to IT and it was very enterprise, right? It was very much an experience of a lot of times a refresh that was going to happen. We'd put product on literally, you know, crates and deliver them to centers of excellence for our clients and go deploy them to the offices and get them out and going. So I think IT organizations are starting to struggle, or they've been struggling. A lot of us work through a lot of those things, but the modern end users are working in so many different places trying to get a long term value equation for the organization, but also be relevant to the worker right here and now. And I think you brought up a lot of great points. When you think about our listeners today, though, that do face some of these challenges, what do you want to talk about what Insight can do to help us? Can you talk a little bit about what is an Apple supported program, or what programs do we have available for them that helps them through that? Because it's one thing to talk about the acquisition of the product itself, but there's a lot more to it, right? Making sure that they're productively able to be deployed. And also, even when there are challenges with the product or they need some help, how can we be involved in that here at Insight? Can you talk a little bit more about that, Vincent?
Vincent
Sure. I thought you'd never ask. Our team has actually built a program within Connected Workforce to really help execute the deployment management and support of the growing Apple fleet. So I would really say that first step or that prerequisite would really be able to equip your workforce with those devices from Apple is our macOS Preparedness Assessment. And this is a free service, which reports on 50 plus technical variables and is really an excellent way to get that, you know, informative idea of your environment's readiness for macOS, Apple devices and that new Apple silicon chip. So with that executive readout or that workplace readiness in hand, you can move into the second phase, which is our Mac Enablement Program. This was a program that was built hand in hand with Apple, and it provides a comprehensive tiered set of assessments, surveys, and guides, and professional and managed services as well. And our team who's been trained and certified can come in to ensure that the infrastructure is configured and optimized to leverage that zero-touch deployment for those M1 Macs, iPads and iOS devices. And our solution is really designed to eliminate all complexity, reduce the cost to manage those Apple endpoints and deliver a great overall end user experience because we know that is quite key nowadays, but the program can scale to meet their business needs with that turnkey approach to enabling choice. And ultimately, this will help expand capabilities as they increase the number of Mac devices and Apple devices within their environment.
Stephen
Wow. I'll tell you what, that's awesome, Vincent. And I know we don't have much more time today, but I want to say thank you for joining us. You know, given that we're working towards being just the solution center of choice, and we look at it, we talk about being an SSI or a super systems integration company, I think that applies to this entire conversation around Apple devices. You talking about a digital transformation for organizations and the ability to scale up and help them make an end to end difference, I think it's phenomenal what we can do. We offer all sorts of different ways that we can do it. And I know you're going to talk a little bit about engagement here at the end, but I think it's also relevant to make sure that everyone understands, folks like myself love getting on and doing round tables and even one-to-one with other executives talking about the pain points, talking about how do we collaborate with like-minded individuals to get the best productivity out of their workforce? So, I always want to make myself available for that. So certainly, as we come across those opportunities, please let me know and the team know where I can do that, so I'd love to participate. I'd like to know a little bit more, though, how we engage together with our organization at large there, Vincent. So, if you close us out with that, I'd like to hear a little bit more in that area and look forward to meeting you again and talking on Tech Journal in the future. Why don't you take it away?
Vincent
Of course, Stephen and likewise. Thank you for helping me today and participating in this TechTalk. But for everyone else, you know, if you would like to find more inspiration and insights about the future of our business, you can check out our digital magazine, The Tech Journal, which is located on our website. And if you'd like to get in touch with our team, please feel free to send us an email at appleservicesatinsight.com. Thank you.
Stephen
Thanks, Vincent. Have a great afternoon, okay? It's always good to see you.
Vincent
Thanks, Stephen. You too.
Sr. Vice President, Managed Services, Insight
Stephen Moss leads Insight’s managed services portfolio, helping clients simplify IT management and support through Insight Intelligent Technology Solutions™. He brings more than 30 years of experience spanning hands-on engineering, sales and executive leadership, and technical management.
Sr. Business Development Manager, Solutions Sales, Apple
Vincent has 13 years of experience in the channel with the last six focusing on the deployment of Apple devices in the enterprise space. Vincent is passionate about helping clients develop, implement and manage their mobile environments with comprehensive solutions. He’s a dedicated resource aligned to Apple.
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