Why every IT manager should care about office analytics

According to a recent report by IDC, today’s IT leaders are being tasked with depending on both technology and information to help their organization successfully transform in the digital world.

“The office has become digital, and everything can be reported on and optimized.” --  Johny Jacques, Sonos

At the forefront of this is data.The office has become more than a place to just show up for work everyday. It holds thousands of meetings, with hundreds of people in spaces that range from the kitchen to a board room. As an IT manager, optimizing that space has become just as important as the technology in it.Here’s what we mean.

How Sonos Leverages Office Analytics

Sonos is changing the way people listen to music all around the world. With over 100 conference rooms worldwide, Sonos shifted their focus to office analytics to better optimize the space they had. “Data is huge for us, as we’re constantly asking ‘why’ when it comes to adding or removing something,” said Johny Jacques, a Solutions Engineer at Sonos.

Jacques said that he spends most of his days thinking about how meeting spaces and the meetings themselves are actually being used. And when it came to building out new spaces or improving on the ones they already had, office analytics were the difference between optimization and inefficiency.

Presence Sensing is More Than the Internet of Things

Bluetooth, beacons and presence. The Internet of Things has been a fancy way of saying, “Do you know what’s happening in your office?” Up until recently, the answer was no. There are many companies and products on the market that use cell phones, smart locks, you name it -- to measure office usage.

But some of those require too much effort on the end user.By placing beacons in meeting spaces, both conference rooms and areas like a kitchen, you can have a heat map and and a real-time activity feed of your office. Here’s a bit about what that would look like:

The Role of IT in 2016 and Beyond

IT managers are moving from reactive and maintenance types of duties and towards proactive and preemptive ones.Here’s a sample of some job responsibilities today for an IT manager. I’ve highlighted the aspects of the role where data is a direct responsibility:

   
• Accomplishes information technology staff results by communicating job expectations.
   
• Maintains staff by recruiting, selecting, orienting, and training employees; maintaining a safe and secure work environment; developing personal growth opportunities.
   
• Maintains organization's effectiveness and efficiency by defining, delivering, and supporting strategic plans for implementing information technologies.
   
• Directs technological research by studying organization goals, strategies, practices, and user projects.
   
• Completes projects by coordinating resources and timetables with user departments and data center.
   
• Verifies application results by conducting system audits of technologies implemented.
   
• Preserves assets by implementing disaster recovery and back-up procedures and information security and control structures.
   
• Recommends information technology strategies, policies, and procedures by evaluating organization outcomes; identifying problems; evaluating trends; anticipating requirements.
   
• Accomplishes financial objectives by forecasting requirements; preparing an annual budget; scheduling expenditures; analyzing variances; initiating corrective action.

*Job description provided by MonsterIn 2016 and beyond, IT managers and those in similar roles are being tasked with measuring the impact of what they’ve implemented, and optimizing the space that they have within the offices they manage.

In today’s world, the inside of a company is just as much of a business as the one that makes the company money.Sonos, Netflix, Kayak and a slew of others, use Robin to be able to get a better sense of how their office is being used. See how your office is being used today -- here’s your free trial.