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companies can appreciate there are various
trusted ways of working in the modern world.
I can see a short-term implication of the
‘always available’ situation we are in, with
some conference calls placed to fill diaries
and working times now seemingly 24/7,
however this will balance out as companies
will focus on productivity while still ensuring
the mental welfare of the employees as well
as the physical.
What advice would you offer
organisations looking to improve
their remote working models?
We have already discussed how important
it is to offer secured access to critical
systems and, along with that, is the
importance of protecting company data
and making personal devices as corporate
as possible, segregating business and
personal applications.
This can be achieved with the creation of a
‘workspace’ – a dedicated portal on a device
which is for business application use and
can be fully ring-fenced and protected, yet
allowing employees access to all applications
and services as though they were sat in
a head office. Engagement between the
business and employee is vital in a remote
working environment, so services across all
functions should be made available to the
employee to request and track, preferably
from a central portal or console. This
empowers the employee with self-service
type capabilities while offering excellent
customer experience and driving high
customer satisfaction.
Companies should also automate service
request/fulfilment processes to increase
operational efficiency and lower costs
of service delivery. One consideration is
that it would be too easy to provide every
employee with every application and this
can be costly from a software licensing
perspective at the client and at the
server, as well as a nightmare at renewal
anniversary and audit times.
Managing the company software estate
allows insight into who has, who uses and
who needs which application and will be
a major factor in cost control for remote
working, especially to balance against
tightened budgets from a COVID fallout.
If these four components of Secured
UEM, Digital Workspace, Enterprise
Service Management and Software Asset
Management could be combined, then
remote working is safe, agile, cost effective
and productive, for both the employee and
the company.
How will the business survive
post-COVID?
Moving forward, looking past COVID-19,
there will be an inevitable change in
customer priorities and behaviour, which
need to be reflected in a company’s
strategy, as well as its operations.
I read an interesting post recently, which
posed a compelling question – which C has
done more to drive Digital Transformation in
your company? CEO, CIO or COVID-19?
If there is a silver lining to this situation,
it can be that our ability to adapt and
overcome and our agility to look at
new norms will leave the global business
community leaner, yet more robust
and ever-increasingly relevant to the
times ahead. •
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