On March 15th, 2023, we announced our Spring ‘23 Release, our biggest release yet. Thank you to those who were able to join us! There were a lot of new features and enhancements announced, so we've prepared a brief recap to get you up to speed with everything in Spring ‘23.

Future of Work Roundup with Chris Herd and Dr. Rebecca Hinds

We started off the event with a conversation between Chris Herd, Founder & CEO of Firstbase, and Dr. Rebecca Hinds, Head of The Work Innovation Lab by Asana.

When Dr. Hinds asked Chris about leaders who choose not to renew their office space, he shared that real estate developers are noticing a decline in demand for new offices. People are realizing that their existing office spaces might not be necessary as the expected return to office has not materialized. Instead of occupying large office spaces, businesses are now considering more flexible options to meet their needs.

Regarding the digital employee experience, Dr. Hinds inquired about the challenges companies face when choosing and implementing the right technology to drive their business forward. Chris mentioned that many companies have tried to replicate their office-based actions in a virtual environment, which has proven to be ineffective. The software and tools that companies have used were not designed to enable great remote work experiences. 

Together, Chris and Dr. Hinds’ insights painted a clear picture: to succeed in a distributed work landscape, companies need to adapt their strategies by optimizing existing tools for remote efficiency and fostering seamless collaboration between different teams.

Chris ended the conversation with a surprise announcement, unveiling his upcoming LinkedIn Live series and podcast called "Against the Herd with Chris Herd." The series will focus on the contrarian leaders building the future of work and driving forward trends that will result in a higher quality of life for millions of workers and their families globally. The series will begin in April. For more information, follow Chris Herd on LinkedIn.

Spring ‘23 Release

Given that the Spring ‘23 Release was our biggest release yet, we broke it down into three key themes:

Give Admins Superpowers

‍We understand that managing end-user computing logistics is incredibly painful and requires coordination across IT, HR, and Finance. Our job is to make this process as automated and convenient as possible.

Integration Hub powered by Workato

• Leverage pre-existing connectors to quickly connect to your HRIS, ITSM, and more
• Automate manual processes such as onboarding and offboarding by connecting to your HRIS

Automated expedited shipping

• Automatically expedite an order if a new hire has placed an order within 6 business days of their start date

One-off used equipment orders

• Understand what equipment is available in your inventory at all times and be able to choose the condition of equipment to send (i.e. new vs. used)

Legacy equipment returns

• Retrieve all equipment (including legacy) as part of a return, regardless of if the equipment was initially procured by Firstbase

Serve Employees Everywhere

‍It’s incredibly important for us to be able to serve all of your employees globally and supply them with equipment in a way that fits your business needs.

Supply your own equipment to Firstbase

• Leverage your established suppliers and send new devices for us to manage
• Extend the life of used devices in your IT closet by sending them to us to manage
• Mix and match procurement models (purchase, lease, supply) across different regions and device categories for ultimate flexibility

Equip your employees in ten new countries and beyond

Unlike other providers, we're doing this by building the operations in these countries from the ground up by partnering with local partners to offer the best customer and employee experience possible

• Now - Canada
• April - India
• In the coming months - Brazil, Singapore, Mexico, Philippines, Israel, Japan, Australia, Argentina

Elevate the Employee Experience

‍We believe that there's more to it than just onboarding and offboarding. Whether a worker needs a replacement or just lost their dongle and needs another, we want to be there for you at every step of the employee journey. 

Virtual IT Closet

• Let your employees order peripherals from an always-on virtual IT closet to reduce equipment requests

Customer Fireside Chat with Verse

We were super excited to close off our release event with a customer fireside chat between Alex Henthorn-Iwane, our VP of Marketing at Firstbase, and Caitlin Nielson, People Operations Manager at Verse. In this conversation, Caitlin discussed how Firstbase has significantly improved Verse's asset management and employee experience throughout its entire employee journey. In addition, Caitlin emphasized the convenience, time savings, and efficiency provided by Firstbase's comprehensive equipment lifecycle management solution. Below are some quotes from the chat, and thank you to Caitlin for being such a valued partner of ours!

“We used to have a hard time keeping track of assets and making sure employees had what they needed, both during onboarding and exit processes. That's when we decided to look for a solution, and we found Firstbase.”

“Firstbase has been a fantastic partner for us, making it easy for our employees to have a great experience throughout their entire lifecycle.”

Watch the full webinar here

Our Spring ‘23 Release is huge step forward for us and continues to help companies manage their entire equipment lifecycle in a more efficient and streamlined way. With features like the Integration Hub powered by Workato, complete procurement flexibility, support in new countries, and the virtual IT closet, we strive to meet all of your needs in flexible work environments. If you’d like to learn more, request a demo.