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The prevalence of remote working was
restricted to those who needed to, and the
rest were to carry on as they had done for
the last 15 to 20 years.
Many companies simply didn’t have a
remote working infrastructure or culture,
while others operated remote working as an
exception rather than the rule. Then along
came COVID-19 and the world changed.
Within weeks of the first cases, and to this
date, remote working and ‘work from home’
(WFH) is the new normal, with all companies
having to adapt to the new requirements for
Business Continuity (BC) – with many not
having BC plans. This presents both a major
challenge and a great opportunity.
What are some of the initial hurdles
that organisations need to overcome
to adapt to a remote working model?
Remote working and work from home
(WFH) doesn’t just mean video calls and
collaboration but is about being able to
Glyn Yates, Country Manager, IMEA
region, Matrix42
provide the infrastructure to a distributed
workforce, with each ‘worker’ having
individual set-ups away from their office.
More importantly it means providing access
to business applications from outside of the
company network.
Today’s company network is protected at
great expense with a variety of technologies
and strategies from sandbox to subnet,
firewalls and proxies, malware and DLP, to
name a few, as well as personnel education.
Key and critical applications were provided
to specific workers on company machines
through a company network – think of HR and
the HRMS system, or finance and ERP. And
even with these measures in place, breaches
occur and for well-known organisations are
highly publicised and very costly.
Now imagine the increase in vulnerability
and subsequent risk when access to the
same critical applications is needed across
hundreds of personal devices from outside
of a protected network – and imagine the
hair pulling of ITOps and SecOps teams
throughout the land as they struggle with this.
So, access is key to enable WFH for
the protection of the employee, but
secured access is critical to the protection
of the business. And all talk naturally
focuses on Secured Unified Endpoint
Management (SUEM), whether this is done
via several different technologies or you are
fortunate to utilise a single platform that
delivers this capability.
Can you outline some of the key
benefits of remote working?
I am sure we have all experienced the good,
the bad and the ugly of remote working.
The most common feedback I have heard,
from many of my colleagues and friends, is
that they are simply more productive – with
conference call after conference call possible
and all systems at their fingertips.
From a cost efficiency perspective there are
many instances of companies re-assigning
budgets; travel factored cost of sales
reducing; customer engagement, including
training, now being led remotely; real estate
and floorspace needs being re-examined;
events expenditure being shelved in favour
of other marketing activities. This may
also include cases where companies are
estimating the average weekly coffee and
kitchen spend and funnelling that to other
areas of the business.
Collaboration between functions and
locations has improved – no longer siloed by
a physical desk behind a physical door within
a physical team, many people from various
departments are ‘meeting’ for the first time.
“
I THINK WE
CAN ALL AGREE
THAT BUSINESS
OUTLOOKS HAVE
SHIFTED AND
HOPEFULLY
COMPANIES CAN
APPRECIATE
THERE ARE
VARIOUS
TRUSTED WAYS OF
WORKING IN THE
MODERN WORLD.
Availability has increased – I’m sure we
have all managed two to three different
conversations at the same time while we are
ever-present at our home office desk; the
times the conference call is on mute and you
are messaging away to various others about
the call or on other subjects.
The conference call itself has become more
personable, with the number of faces visible
on a call being almost everyone and black
screens being the black sheep.
And not to mention the time spent with the
family has dramatically improved – no more
business trips or late nights in the office.
We are also seeing that company culture
is changing. I have worked in companies
where a hard 8.30am start of the day
was mandatory, being at your desk and
‘productive’. Working from home was seen
almost as a ‘holiday’ and a chance to ease
the workload and availability, with mistrust
being at the root. Flexible working hours
and allowances for ‘life situations’ were
frowned upon. The only way to conduct
meaningful business was over a coffee
and a handshake.
I think we can all agree that business
outlooks have shifted and hopefully
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