As we move into the month of June, the COVID-19 pandemic has now forced employees to work from home for nearly four challenging months. The virus has thrown business owners, employers, and employees alike into unfamiliar, and often unsettling, territory. Not only have our daily lives changed drastically, but companies around the world have been forced to completely reorganize their workflow and processes.
The rapid speed at which the virus spread gave companies very little time to create comprehensive plans on how to stay efficient while working from home. In many cases, companies had no experience whatsoever with remote work. But while businesses were unfamiliar with the issues presented by the virus, it also forced company leaders to think outside the box for innovative solutions.
IT, informational technology, is at the root of many of the challenges businesses are currently facing. Video conferencing and project management softwares have become essential to daily operations, as have network connectivity and server functionality. While these concepts may have been foreign to companies just five short months ago, they are now the lifelines keeping many businesses afloat.
Here are a few critical IT lessons businesses have learned from COVID-19.
Online Communication Comes in Many Forms
One of the chief concerns employers had with letting their employees work from home was the ability to keep a consistent line of communication flowing. In some industries, staying in touch with coworkers and team members is crucial to operations. This forced decision makers at companies to take a closer look at all the different online communication platforms, including those in the video, chat room, and instant messaging space.
Video communication platforms like Zoom and Google Meet have garnered the most attention during this pandemic due to them being the closest thing possible to in-person interactions. For some organizations, though, messaging platforms have proved equally valuable. Slack, a communication platform that includes persistent chat rooms organized by topic, private groups, and direct messaging, is one such software. While video chats are ideal for group meetings and detailed discussions, softwares like Slack allow for quick, direct communication.
Implementing these softwares and systems also proved to be a challenge for businesses. IT consulting companies who specialize in support for these types of technologies have proven to be invaluable during the current crisis. In order to keep entire teams of employees on the same page, proper functionality and support is essential. One thing businesses have learned from the current crisis is that online communication comes in many forms, and remote IT support can be invaluable.
Offering Remote Services to Clients is No Longer Optional
The social distancing and stay-at-home orders gave business and customers no choice but to interact remotely. Whether it’s lawyers consulting with clients over Zoom, academic institutions offering rapidly developed online courses or retailers making the transition to eCommerce, seemingly all of the business that was being done was (and for the most part still is) occurring remotely.
There was undoubtedly an initial stage of shock as companies and consumers adjusted to the new normal of conducting business across the internet. But as we as a society have begun to grow accustomed to these remote interactions, we’re beginning to learn valuable lessons from these forced changes. One lesson that’s becoming glaringly apparent during COVID-19 is that, if there’s any way a company can offer their services remotely to potential clients or customers, then they must be equipped to do so.
The best example of business owners making sustainable improvements to their businesses during the coronavirus is retailers incorporating eCommerce into their strategy. The fact is, even before the current pandemic, retail business was making a rapid transition to eCommerce, evidenced by the fact that, “eCommerce dollars comprise 10% of ALL retail revenue,” as of January 2020. COVID-19 gave those business owners who may have been dragging their feet in regards to embracing eCommerce the kick in the pants they needed to fully embrace the potential revenue source. Integrating eCommerce proved to be an issue for some retailers, but with the help of committed IT support teams, the initial learning curb was only a bump in the road.
Security Risks are Constantly Changing
Another headache for companies as they allowed their employees to work from home was being prepared for a wave of evolving cyber security risks. When all employees are under one roof, and operating from the same servers and networks, it can be easier to manage potential threats. But with employees working from their own private networks, often on company laptops and equipment, the potential damage of a cyberattack grows exponentially.
We’ve already written about some of the creative ways in which hackers are capitalizing on the coronavirus, such as disguising malware in emails with subject lines such as, “Urgent New Update Regarding the Coronavirus.” It only takes one employee to click on a bad link or download a malicious file to expose valuable company information.
Businesses have learned that staying in close contact with their IT team during times of working remotely can be the difference between smooth-sailing and a perilous journey.
Choosing the Right IT Consultants is Essential
Throughout the virtually endless list of potential IT concerns, company’s have done their best to stay afloat. One of the reasons this has been such a challenging process for businesses is the fact that, just six months ago, they never could have predicted the IT issues that they’re facing today.
While the pandemic was nearly impossible to predict, a team of well-trained and professional IT experts is uniquely capable of anticipating problems before they even exist. Experts, like the ones at M&H Consulting don’t only specialize in network management, server management, cloud support and other operational IT processes, they also prevent problems and help companies deal with unforeseen challenges. Having a team of remote IT specialists to help companies through the transition to working from home has highlighted just how important it is to work with an IT team that understands what it takes to keep a business running, even when the rest of the world feels like it’s been shut down.
While it may still be difficult for many business owners to see the forest through the trees in the current situation, adapting to the difficult IT landscape brought on by COVID-19 can be a net positive when it’s all said and done. Gaining insight into a rapidly changing world is one of the silver linings afforded to business owners during these unprecedented times; the future can now shine a bit brighter than the present.
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