The pandemic has accelerated the trend toward remote working environments, and governance and security issues continue to top the priority list for IT departments around the country, especially within financial institutions. According to Business Wire, the desktop virtualization market for financial services is forecasted to grow 45.41% between 2019-2024.
The very nature of the services financial institutions provide makes the industry the ideal candidate for leveraging Desktop as a Service (DaaS) providers. The data they deal with contains PII and is highly sensitive and requires robust regulation. Customers are all over the world and employees need the technological agility to respond to their clients as and when required. As such, business leaders are increasingly taking a cloud-first approach to remote work applications, including Hyperscale-based desktop as a service solutions.
What is DaaS?
During the global pandemic, many businesses were forced to begin operating remotely. Initially, employees simply switched from using company-based systems to their home computers. This posed a challenge for IT professionals, who had to juggle hundreds of unfamiliar PCs on countless home networks. This meant little visibility, no management tools, and increased security risk. The Pandemic became the event that spurred DaaS into hypergrowth as it proved an excellent solution for IT departments to maintain governance, control, and security in a remote environment.
Desktop-as-a-Service is a model for delivering virtual desktops to end users, including providing the requisite network, storage, compute, virtualization, and tools, directly to businesses from the cloud. This includes the network that provides secure access over VPN and built-in Identity Management access to those critical systems. For storage and compute, IT no longer has to forecast, purchase, and configure these resources on an ongoing basis.
Desktop as a Service providers charge an ongoing, per-user subscription fee to manage this environment, optimize the experience with new tools such as Microsoft Teams or Cisco Webex, and ensure uninterrupted access to a complete Windows-based desktop and set of business applications for users on nearly any device from any location.
Benefits for Financial Services Companies
The right DaaS solution improves performance and optimizes security, making it extremely beneficial to financial services institutions:
- Security: Financial Services (FinServ) companies constantly deal with highly sensitive customer information. Because of this, the industry is also the most targeted by cybercriminals. According to Accenture, the number of security breaches in FinServ averages 125 annually, costing the industry $18.28 million per year.
Some of the most significant cyberattacks in history have occurred during the pandemic. Why? Businesses rushed to get people collaborating in new applications like Microsoft Teams or to expand the VPN to provide remote access to critical onsite applications and data in order to continue operating business as close to as normal as possible.
With employees accessing their company’s critical systems and data from a variety of home routers, Wi-Fi connections, and personal devices, many new security vulnerabilities arose. As a result, businesses had to reconsider their endpoint security and management strategy, remote access methods, incident and event monitoring, and backup and recovery plans.
DaaS can significantly improve IT governance and security since all mission-critical applications and data are centralized and not sitting on multiple endpoint devices. Desktop as a Service providers deliver state-of-the-art protection, multi-factor authentication, and proven multiple recovery protocols to keep companies protected from breaches and cybercrime.
- Accessibility: As the expression goes, “Money makes the world go around”, and offering financial services to global clients involves the resolution of their queries at any time from anywhere. Customers are technically savvy and conduct transactions online and through mobile devices, and they expect access to their service providers to be equally as fast. Financial services organizations need to be agile and flexible enough to meet the demands of their ‘always on’ customers. Accessible from any device, anytime, anywhere, DaaS solutions enable finance professionals to cater to clients from different time zones, whether at the office, on the road, or at home.
- Scalability: Traditionally, the financial services industry has taken a more cautious approach to adopting new technologies. This is partly due to the sensitive nature of the highly regulated Increasingly, though, CIOs are turning to Desktop as a Service as a way to deliver enhanced efficiency, reduced IT spend, and greater scalability.
Financial institutions require an agile infrastructure that can adapt to evolving business needs.
DaaS providers offer flexible desktops that can be scaled instantly. Since the desktops are virtual, their configuration can be easily customized.
For example, if your organization experiences some variability in your workforce, such as contractor-based engagements or seasonal employees, the DaaS provider can easily grant only necessary access and privileges without making the organization’s entire system vulnerable to a fluctuating workforce. When work is completed, access and privileges are easily revoked.
- Cost Reduction: Working with Desktop as a Service providers shifts IT from a capital expense to a predictable operating expense. Most DaaS providers offer a full suite of services for a per user, per month, subscription fee. This allows enterprises to only pay for the users currently on the platform, scaling up and down as needed, while having access to a team of experts that can keep their system up-to-date and secure without ongoing investment from their bu
- Productivity: Since new installations, management of viruses, and other security issues, upgrades and patches are performed by the DaaS partner in a central location, employees will not experience as many disruptions. Gone are the days when IT must physically move or work on individual machines to solve problems; many of these activities can be completed in the background, unknown to end-users at all. As a result, team members will typically be able to continue accessing their system whenever and wherever they need it to maintain and improve their productivity levels on a daily basis.
Additionally, with Desktop as a Service provider, they perform all the platform updates and desktop performance troubleshooting, freeing up IT to focus on mission-critical priorities, which are often more valuable, interesting, and fulfilling from a professional standpoint.
Ready to Learn More?
Evolve IP partners with hundreds of financial services companies, including investment firms, banks, private equity, accounting, and insurance, all over the world. Our geographically redundant cloud solutions have been 3rd-party audited to meet PCI-DSS and other compliance regulations and are protected by the world’s most robust data security standard, incorporating more than 20 domestic and international security frameworks. To learn why financial enterprises rely on Evolve IP to ensure business continuity, improve associate mobility, and meet compliance requirements, all while controlling IT costs and resources, contact us today.
