Una de las organizaciones de servicios bancarios y financieros más grandes del mundo, HSBC, lanzó el año pasado un Programa de Elección del Empleado en el que los empleados pueden elegir usar una Mac como su computadora principal de trabajo.</p><h2>Signo de los tiempos</h2><p>En 2008, HSBC fue una de las primeras grandes empresas en deshacerse de BlackBerry y migrar a iPhones. Más recientemente, se unió a la tendencia de migrar trabajadores a Mac, ya que permitió a los empleados trabajar desde casa durante la pandemia.
It's the latest example of the growing adoption of Apple hardware in employee choice programs, which has helped the company capture a 23% share of the US business PC market. Jamf spoke briefly about the HSBC project during a recent analyst call. He explained how HSBC worked with Jamf and Apple to enable the program, introducing Zero Touch setup and deployment so employees can easily provision and operate their Macs, allowing them to be remotely pre-configured by technical support, mitigating some of the risks associated with working from home (FMH). "This process has enabled HSBC to efficiently upgrade devices for homeworkers and reduce implementation costs," said Dean Hager, CEO of Jamf. He noted that the scale of the shift to remote work posed an additional challenge at the time: "In addition, this project was completed during a very busy time for HSBC's IT department, as COVID forced 98% of their employees to switch to remote work, including the employees who support this project."
HSBC has 232,957 employees worldwide, and while it is unclear how many of them will now use Macs (I asked for more information), this is still a significant launch of the platform.
Learn more about Mac
He also noted that while other computer makers were struggling to keep up with demand for WFH computers, Apple was able to keep up with the supply. This is particularly impressive given the operational and logistical challenges that have plagued the industry over the past year and the enormous demand from businesses for new Macs. (Remember that one of the first acts of resistance to the pandemic undertaken by Starling Bank was procure all available MacBooks to equip staff as they move to work remotely). Hager believes that Apple's introduction of M-series processors in the new Macs will accelerate the trend of enterprise adoption, noting that demand for them among employees at the companies that support them is already strong. “We see the new Mac increasing demand,” Hager said.
The WFH is home safety
Of course, there are also security issues with remote work, which has caused some companies not to migrate to non-kext app development for their Mac M1 anti-malware apps. "We believe that remote work has created increased demand for security solutions, as well as for people working from these homes, which is even more important to ensure they are protected against threats," Hager said.
What happens next?
There is a growing belief that remote work will be part of the new normal once we are out of the pandemic. HSBC certainly seems to agree. Not only did the company launch its employee-focused technology choice program, company COO John Hinshaw closed out 2020 when he said the bank would use 40% less office space in the future. Jamf thinks along the same lines. “What we have told our employees is moving forward, we will continue to have facilities and we will continue to have offices that employees come to work in, and we want to create a great environment that they want to work in,” Hager. saying. “However, our facilities will no longer be an expectation of our employees. It will be a service that we provide them. The desire to avoid unnecessary contact during the pandemic also appears to be leading to greater use of digital processes, HSBC said. The company reported a 50% increase in the use of digital chat support services in June 2020 when it introduced support for Apple Business Chat, with similar experiences across all these services. Just look at Zendesk's stock and how it's moved over the last 12 months. "We've been putting years of effort into the business and building a little bit of muscle there," Apple CEO Tim Cook said on the latest tax call. "We are very optimistic about what we can do in this space." Hager seems to agree. He told analysts: "Coming from a year where you had more employees working from home than at any time in our history, we think that's just going to fuel the consumerization of computing." Follow me on Twitter or join me in the AppleHolic's bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.
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