What does the future of work look like?

Photo: Abhimanyu Ghoshal

"As robotics, automation and AI steadily improve, I’ve been thinking a lot about what will keep the human workforce busy in the years to come. How much longer will we need to park ourselves at our desks for hours on end, in order to pay our bills?" according to Abhimanyu Ghoshal.

Rise conference in Hong Kong

At the Rise conference in Hong Kong yesterday, customer support service Freshdesk’s CEO Girish Mathrubootham and Google for Work president Amit Singh shared their thoughts on the future of productivity.

Singh believes that desktop apps are on their way out. “Sure, some people work on their desktops, but they’re increasingly getting more done on mobile devices. In the future, you’ll be spending even more time on them, away from your desk.”

Mathrubootham added to this with context from his company’s helpdesk service:

Mathrubootham added to this with context from his company’s helpdesk service:

These days, we want to be able to access our customer support email from wherever you are. Traditional software chains you to your desk and require you to use a VPN when you’re on the move.
The convenience of working from anywhere that modern apps offer, is what is driving the shift from desktop-focused to mobile and cloud-based solutions.

Designing work apps for the future 
Singh feels that new apps are more about collaboration for increased productivity and less about our contributions as individuals...

Isn’t it risky for businesses to put all their data in the cloud? Singh believes that cloud-based infrastructure can be trusted now and in the future:

The cloud is a lot more secure than companies’ own bespoke security infrastructure. We know what it takes to secure Google’s system. We’ve built everything from scratch, from our data centers to our platforms, and we spend a lot of time protecting our network.

Not to say that bad things can’t happen, but it takes a lot of time, money and effort to build secure solutions. The transition to cloud-based infrastructure will be because of security and not in spite of it.

Mathrubootham has faith in large-scale cloud-based systems. He said, “Where is your money safer, in your home or deposited in a bank? Cloud companies are in the business of selling data security, not just software. If we lost our customers’ data, we’d have to shut shop. So it’s important for us to focus on robust systems that are indeed secure.”
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Source: The Next Web