While the COVID-19 pandemic is a health crisis, it also brings significant impact to businesses globally. Considering the recent pandemic, enterprises have re-assessed their operations to ensure the safety of their employees – without disturbing business continuity. Several organizations in affected geographies have mandated work-from-home (telecommute) policies for their employees and canceled non-critical business travel plans with immediate effect. However, not all these organizations have the requisite technology stack or a trained workforce to guarantee a 100% secure and productive remote-work setup.
How to ACT NOW
COVID-19 has brought to the forefront several historically overlooked vulnerabilities of the traditional IT enterprise setup. Many businesses have temporarily shut down due to inability to deal with crises of this scale. Several other companies have realized that they are not equipped to ensure 100% productivity with a temporary remote setup and now look to improve their current setup immediately.
In a crisis like this, which can last for an indefinite time, making quick, highly informed workforce productivity decisions and following up with immediate action is critical to ensure essential business operations aren’t impacted. To minimize disruption and enable corporate workforces to operate remotely, enterprises must take action NOW.
Quickly update the tech stack
Enterprises should immediately analyze their existing technology stack and evaluate their current collaboration setup and its scalability. This step is critical and best followed by executing strategy to ensure collaboration amongst their remote workforce, continuity of business operations, and security of existing systems and data are sufficiently supported. To begin with, from a technology point of view, enterprises need to have the following types of tools present in their technology stack:
- Collaboration tools: Collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, Office 365’s hub for teamwork, is an excellent tool for mid to large size organizations. It enables unified communication and collaboration by addressing most remote collaboration needs such as chats, video meetings, file storage, audio recording, mobile device compatibility, and seamless integration with several existing applications in the current enterprise environment.
- Secure remote access tools: Microsoft Teams can be used in conjunction with a Virtual Desktop infrastructure set up to ensure employees working from remote locations can communicate with their work desktops through trusted networks. The virtual device can be configurated as needed and used from anywhere across the globe. It can be further topped up encrypted network access via Virtual Private Network (VPN). This encrypted connection ensures sensitive data is securely transmitted over less secure networks, such as home or public internet.
- Time monitoring tools: Several time-monitoring tools can be integrated into an enterprise’s existing technology stack to measure the productivity of employees operating remotely. These tools can be used in conjunction with the collaboration tools to ensure the workforce is engaged in day-to-day operations.
In these uncertain times, tech giants such as Microsoft and Google are offering enterprises free or heavily subsidized subscriptions to their collaboration platforms. Microsoft currently provides free subscription to Microsoft Teams for the next 6-months, while Google has enabled access to its advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing capabilities for all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers globally.
Immediately engage with a Managed Services partner
The current catastrophe has brought the growing need for a globally connected and fully optimized work setup to the center stage. Therefore, enterprises must not merely address the situation with a quick fix or a workaround. Implementing a safe and secure remote work setup is a full-fledged project that must be handled by an experienced Managed Services provider. Enterprises must look at this situation as an opportunity to create a crisis-resilient workforce and a technology environment that can support their business not only through the current crisis, but any that may come in the future.
An experienced Managed Services partner can help organizations:
- Assess their current IT setup and find and address vulnerabilities that might prove fatal during critical times
- Update their technology stack to include tools required for remote collaboration and business continuity in times of crisis or otherwise
- Help enterprises create a robust work-from-home plan by leveraging the recommended technology stack and fine-tuning their existing business processes
- Offer cloud infrastructure setup as well as supplementary workforce in crises such as outages due to cyber-attacks or another unprecedented global crisis like COVID-19
- Consult, train, and enable the workforce to become crisis-resilient and ensure 100% productivity even with remote setup
How Synoptek can help you
Synoptek is an award-winning global systems integrator and managed IT services provider, offering comprehensive IT management and consultancy services to organizations worldwide. Over 20 years of our existence, we have partnered with clients of all sizes – from mid-market to Fortune 100. We recognize that in the current situation, several companies might need immediate assistance with the rapid implementation of their work-from-home programs. Therefore, Synoptek is making its expert consultancy team available to help these companies plan and address their immediate as well as their long-term IT infrastructure and workforce enablement needs.
Interested in our work-from-home enablement program? Contact a Synoptek expert today.