Software failures can derail medium-sized businesses.
One of the benefits of virtual desktop software is the ability to centralize software troubleshooting and access specialized help 24/7. Without it, you’d have to turn to software problem resolution through traditional services like service tickets.
This involves calling IT experts for a local solution, which takes time and increases productivity downtimes and service outages.
Overall, prolonged software failure resolution causes huge employee downtimes that can cost your small business in revenue.
In fact, an Infrascale survey revealed that 53% of small businesses experience downtime due to software failure, making it the biggest cause of business outages.
That’s where virtual desktop software helps.
They centralize troubleshooting and provide more reliable software solutions that guarantee excellent uptime and quick software problem resolution.
In this article, I’ll guide you through the top virtual desktop software benefits for large businesses in 2024 that will make your workflow more productive, cost-efficient, and profitable.
Let’s get started.
1. Improved collaboration among workers
Collaboration can be a challenge at times.
For instance, the lack of real-time communication channels can delay team-driven projects and further hamper productivity.
Additionally, when employees have to constantly upload and send large files back and forth between themselves, facing restrictions by size-limited IT systems, then collaboration further takes a hit.
All in all, poor workplace collaboration boils down to legacy IT systems that don’t have all the necessary collaboration features.
As a matter of fact, a Fierce Inc. survey revealed that 85% of employees blame workplace failures on poor collaboration. So your small business’s success greatly depends on improving collaboration.
Fortunately, among the benefits of virtual desktop software for small businesses is the ability to enhance collaboration.
First, virtual desktop software improves collaboration by enabling unlimited and fast file exchanges between your employees.
Additionally, some of these tools also come with features that allow real-time discussions and communication about the files and generally about the work at hand.
Via an activity stream, users can also get notifications of file changes in real-time, which also goes a long way to streamline collaboration for your medium to large-sized business by ensuring everyone is in sync with the latest task developments.
MAC Engineering based in Calgary, Canada, was facing difficulties implementing remote collaboration due to resource-intensive applications that could only run on on-site hardware.
However, they successfully transitioned to a distributed workforce via Inuvika’s enterprise virtualization solution. With live communication tools & large processing power, their engineers now collaborate remotely via their devices with minimal latency.
2. Faster login times to boost productivity
Many small businesses struggle with performance issues.
Moreso if you’re reliant upon old infrastructure, which is prone to long log-in times for your employees and profile inconsistencies.
In addition to lags, aging IT infrastructure just ruins your workflow, by making your processes and your employees tethered to just one location.
Overall, aging IT infrastructure results in slower performance for your small business, which reduces your productivity and output.
According to a Nexthix study, small businesses lose 1 hour and 12 minutes daily to digital disruptions such as huge application loading times and slow system performance.
This downtime translates to huge revenue losses each month.
With virtual desktop software, you can keep your business’ IT infrastructure fast, agile, and ahead of the curve.
Because they run on cloud servers, one of the benefits of virtual desktop software for small businesses in 2024 is access to additional computational power.
This allows you to leverage more hardware power than you would on a typical PC, which tends to also slow down, particularly during high load times, due to the apps installed and memory issues.
Since virtual desktop software doesn’t experience this problem, they load up faster to ensure faster log-in times as well as faster overall performance.
One leading light electrical giant based in the UK had trouble with underperforming collaboration tools and third-party vendor solutions which slowed down performance.
Through WhiteHat Virtual, they lowered employee log-in times by 79%. By cutting down log-in times and boosting efficiency, the company achieved greater productivity and output.
3. Makes your business more competitive
Why do small businesses often fall behind enterprises?
It’s usually simply because the playing field is not even.
For example, enterprises tend to have a better technology adoption rate compared to small businesses. As a result, they tend to enjoy higher operation efficiency while your small business provides lower-quality service.
Therefore, not tapping into virtualization technologies keeps your small business at a competitive disadvantage.
According to a Spiceworks report, only 24% of small businesses have implemented desktop virtualization compared to 50% of enterprises. So the adoption rate by enterprises is double that of small businesses, which shows how much small businesses lag behind.
But you can turn things around.
When you adopt this technology, you get access to the game-changing benefits of virtual desktop software for small businesses in 2024 that your more established competitors enjoy.
From greater workflow performance due to increased business continuity to higher operational efficiency, you gain the capabilities to match your competitors in terms of their productivity and quality of service.
Overall, I find that virtual desktop software levels the playing field and allows your small business to sharpen its competitive advantage.
And with the majority of small businesses yet to adopt virtualization, doing so will make you stand out from the crowd with superior service provision.
Based in Europe, PIK Group had trouble meeting the intense hardware needs of all its graphic designers and simultaneously staying profitable and competitive.
However, they raised competitiveness and profitability by adopting Dell’s desktop virtualization technologies to create a more flexible work environment with fewer hardware costs.
4. Better data disaster recovery
IT disasters are part of running a small business.
That being said, without a good disaster recovery in place, this can possibly ruin the future of your small business due to the subsequent downtime and revenue losses.
Many small businesses tend to store their data in on-site data centers. In case of damage, theft, or loss, this can lead to irreparable data loss and IT outages.
Ultimately, poor disaster recovery can lead to the downfall of your small business.
In fact, a Logic Monitor study revealed that 94% of small businesses experienced IT outages and this translated to a considerable amount of revenue loss per year.
But with virtual desktop software, you can protect your IT systems from data loss.
For instance, among the benefits of virtual desktop software for small businesses in 2024 is data decentralization to the cloud. So in the event of hardware failure such as hard disk crashes or some other problem with on-premise data centers, you can still recover valuable data.
With safe and decentralized data backup solutions, I find that your small business becomes immune to data loss that can occur due to natural disasters and human error.
Consequently, your business enjoys greater continuity.
Godstowe School in the UK used to rely on redundant data recovery measures. They wanted a modern solution that would get around building an expensive data center.
So they implemented a cloud disaster recovery solution using Azure virtual desktop which alleviated the need to raise money to build a data center, thereby raising the school’s cost-efficiency.
5. Greater cybersecurity for remote work
Remote work isn’t always easy to implement.
Small businesses, in particular, face certain concerns with this work model, chief of which are cyber security risks associated with the decentralization of work. For instance, a malware attack on an employee’s device can put confidential business information at risk.
Overall, individual cyber security threats stemming from employee negligence can cripple your entire business’s systems.
Moreover, according to a survey by OpenVPN, 73% of business leaders said that remote workers are a huge cyber security threat. This proves how front-line, remote workers can be the biggest liability to any small business.
As one of the critical benefits of virtual desktop software, this technology offers robust data storage.
So instead of data being stored on end-user devices such as a remote worker’s phone or PC, for example, it’s instead stored in the cloud, with the user just given temporary access to it.
Therefore, in case of theft of end-user devices, your small business’s data remains safe.
Additionally, virtualization software also incorporates customizable firewall controls and traffic isolation tactics, which further reinforces your small business’ workflow to prevent third-party attacks.
With greater cybersecurity measures in place, your small business can scale its remote work model with ease.
Based in Sweden, Klarahill ran on legacy Windows applications that posed both a security threat and inflated costs for the business.
They negated potential security issues when they adopted Cameyo’s virtual desktop solution. Additionally, they also ended up realizing 85% cost savings due to reduced remote desktop expenses.
Conclusion
End-point hardware for employees attracts massive costs.
For small businesses, the cost of fully furnishing each employee with a computer can be through the roof. These expenses just keep on piling up by the head with individual software licenses, and, at the end of the day, they can have serious ramifications.
Overall, getting fully furnished end-point hardware for each employee can cost your small business a fortune.
According to a Statista report, small businesses spend 31% of their budgets on hardware alone. This goes to show just how costly end-point hardware can be.
However, virtualization offers the ability to utilize thin client machines. Unlike a traditional OS, these virtual OS rely on small stripped-down machines and shared software licenses that are cheaper.
But there’s more.
Other benefits of virtual desktop software like Inuvika include better productivity, giving your business a competitive edge, and better data disaster recovery.
For these reasons, I recommend that you acquire virtual desktop software today.
Also published here.