Back to Business - But Not As Usual...

For many businesses in many sectors in the weeks and months ahead, it will be a case of 'Back to Business - But Not As Usual'. As the business community starts to embrace life amid the easing of lockdown, Anne Tasker, founder and Managing Director of Warwickshire-based Zenzero Solutions, offered some advice on the technical bridges to be crossed.

When lockdown came you may have been one of the many businesses across Warwickshire which had to make the move to remote working.

It was a tough time as business laptops were in short supply, employees found themselves battling with family members for broadband width and the idea of being home alone was a major adjustment for those who enjoy office banter.

At Zenzero, we moved hundreds of business to remote working and are now helping them make the move back – some taking a halfway approach with a number of employees staying at home while others return to their desk.

Here are some points to consider in the transition to ensure that your IT is helping you get back to business.

*   Check the bandwidth in the office. Remote working staff will have become used to holding team video meetings from home where they each have an individual broadband connection. At Zenzero, we developed a split system to minimise bandwidth when people are working this way. However, back in the office you could end up with half a dozen or more people holding meetings with remote working colleagues via video conferences on a single network which simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to cope. Consider investing in a designated line to prevent overloading the system or look again at the way you hold meetings across the virtual space.

*   Ditch the desktop? You probably sent your staff home with a laptop. If so, then consider what you are going to do when they return to their desks and their desktop PCs. Laptops already have the video and audio function built in. If you want them to return to using their desktop for virtual meetings you will have to buy a webcam and headphones. There is already a hole in the supply chain. High-end ones are readily available but some at the lower end not so much. It may be cheaper to ditch the desktop.

*   Time to talk telecommunications. Consider VOIP – Voice Over Internet Protocol. With half the staff out of the office and half in there is bound to be an issue around phone calls and voicemail messages. Setting up a VOIP system via Microsoft Teams means if someone is continuing to work remotely and a customer leaves a message then the person responsible will be alerted via email. If they can’t deal with the issue they can forward the voicemail onto someone who can or to a group of people via email in Teams.

*    Microsoft Teams. If you didn’t have Microsoft Teams before lockdown it is worth considering for anytime your staff can’t work from the office whether that’s a fire, flood or a pandemic. It’s a hub where all forms of communication go through one system allowing you to make phone calls, video calls, written chat online and hold meetings through your laptop or mobile device. It provides an email system and puts folders and documents in the one place. Users can see changes in real time. No more searching through old emails for updates or wondering which is the latest version of a document.

*   Unified Communications. This is about blending all communication tools from phones, desktops, laptops, IT connectivity and an organisation’s IT into one system such at Teams (mentioned above) or with one IT company. The benefit to businesses is everything is in one place and therefore when things go wrong you are not dealing with multiple suppliers i.e. telephone company, IT company, mobile phone company and broadband provider. It’s worth considering at

any time but would be particularly useful should there be a second wave and you have to return work to remote working again.

*   Security element: How did you control access while people were working from home? Are those permissions still necessary? Review access given to people on mobile devices while working remotely. If people are travelling to and from the office in the future there is a chance these devices could get lost or stolen. Do staff returning to the office really need access to data, emails etc on their mobile phones and tablets any more?