Desktop virtualisation — Bringing business advantages to pharma sector

Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly facing the pressure to safeguard research data, sensitive information and staying ahead of their competitors. In this scenario, many companies are adopting technologies to address the challenges and meet business objectives. One of the technologies that see mainstream adoption among pharmaceutical companies is Desktop Virtualisation. It is a natural technology evolution to deliver high value, high performance end-user computing that is simple to consume and optimised for operational efficiency. To ‘dejargonise’ the concept, the applications and user data is hosted in the data centre and decoupled from the endpoint rendering it as a mere access point for users. So the user gets the same experience as his original PC terminal, but the data is secure in the data centre with no transactions happening at the end point devices and no data being stored there.

Due to the inherent advantages carried by desktop virtualisation, many of the challenges faced by pharma companies gets automatically addressed through the adoption of this technology.

Protection of IP

Pharma companies have a lot of sensitive data such as research material, patent document etc and it is supremely critical to protect them. A key concern area for IT managers in pharma companies is how to deal with data leakage at endpoints. This is underpinned by a growing concern over compliance, driven by a growing desire to prevent data loss and more stringent data access requirements. Desktop virtualisation provides a compelling answer to both these issues. As the user data resides in a centrally controlled datacentre as opposed to being stored on thousands of distributed end-points, users are disarmed to save any data on their devices. But not at the price of reduced flexibility! An organisation can most definitely allows users to bring their own mobile devices to work; all of which will serve as mere access points while the data is still centrally secured. This tantamount to mitigated security risks at the endpoint coupled with tighter controls centrally managed inside the data centre. Even if the mobile device gets stolen, IT will be able to remove sensitive information from the device remotely.

Anywhere anytime Access

Pharma field representatives are constantly on the go. During their visits to doctors, they need to be constantly updated on order and delivery information even when they are not in the office. Desktop virtualisation enables to work with data from anywhere, thereby enabling real-time access. Field representative would be able to log in orders faster and sales order management becomes streamlined. Another advantage is that the representatives can use their own mobile devices and tablets for the work. Pharma companies are welcoming this trend because their representatives can become more productive without the company having to incur extra costs for such devices. With IT becoming increasingly consumerised and businesses now operating in a heterogeneous mobile environment; security is emerging as a big issue. Desktop virtualisation is a solution to both these issues as it empowers organisations to adopt mobile workstyles but at the same time, secures enterprise data on these mobile devices by storing it only on the central server.

Easy accessibility to desktops

Pharma sales executives get very limited time to interact with physicians and a lot of time gets wasted if an executive uses a laptop or tablet to access company data from outside locations. Today’s sales executives require company data accessibility on the move, delivered on demand, without being in the confines of an organisational network. This can be made possible through desktop virtualisation that makes available desktops on demand as a service. It gives mobility a new meaning where you aren’t just accessing corporate emails but are being able to have the same office desktop experience on your mobile device and tablets. Once, the user has authenticated himself on his mobile device and has logged in, his personal desktop is delivered to him on his mobile device (with his original personal settings, access rights, privileges). As a result, desktop virtualisation has emerged as one of the most preferred technologies among sales executives in the pharma segment.

Application delivery

There is a large number of agents who require heavy usage of applications and the IT team needs to install each application in every device individually. The situation becomes all the even worse when these applications need to be updated. The IT team has to update each application in all devices manually, which results in loss of productivity and time. Through desktop virtualisation, applications can be centralised and delivered seamlessly to the end points as and when required. The IT team is saved from installing the applications in all the devices. In case of an application upgrade, the application can be updated centrally and the changes will simultaneously be reflected in all devices.

Mobile device management

Pharma companies have a large workforce who access corporate information from their mobile devices, hence managing these devices becomes an issue. MDM (Mobile Device Management) solution enables the IT team to manage corporate data in the employee’s mobile devices, hence even in the event of the device getting lost or stolen, the corporate data can be wiped off remotely. The solution provides identity-based provisioning and control for all apps, data and devices, policy-based controls, such as restriction of application access to authorised users, automatic account de-provisioning for terminated employees and selective wipe of apps and data stored on lost, stolen or out-of-compliance devices.

Thus we can see in the era of mobile workstyles, pharmaceutical companies are highly dependent on technologies that can aptly address their business challenges and desktop virtualisation is turning out to be a mainstream technology which can address the industry imperatives.