With the sweeping spread of COVID-19, enterprises have seen an unprecedented level of disruption to their daily operations. As governments struggle to contain the escalation of the virus, many countries have begun to enforce either nationwide lockdowns or strict curfews to minimize person-to-person contact via social distancing measures.
Employees all over the world are being asked to self-isolate at home, placing an imminent and growing burden on corporate IT infrastructures. For enterprises with remote working capabilities in place, the entirety of their workforce is now working remotely over the internet. This poses a challenge for IT departments, as they struggle to keep the lights on to maintain business continuity in these trying times. Given the current situation, the top priority for enterprises should be the safety of their workforce. To ensure the safety of all employees, digital workplace is now truly an imperative—but do you have the means to reach that end?
Are you prepared?
As the situation evolves, so should your decisions. Today’s rapidly changing circumstances demand agile decision making and proactive measures to minimize business disruption. Bearing the brunt of this shift in work requirements, your IT department will need to monitor your existing infrastructure and expand capacity to accommodate an entirely remote workforce.
To overcome the technological barriers that get in the way of business continuity during a crisis, consider the following steps:
Phase 1: Assess – The first step when adapting to unprecedented events is a thorough assessment of your existing IT infrastructure. As your business-wide approach to work changes, you may encounter unforeseen bottlenecks that hinder or completely disrupt routine employee workflows.
We can help you assess your current technological capabilities and the scalability of your systems and work processes, so you can see any potential fault lines in your ecosystem that can be quickly addressed to handle new demands.
Phase 2: Adapt – There is an urgent need to adapt and accommodate new ways of working. Never let a crisis go waste – this could be an opportunity to revisit your business processes and update them. To begin, your enterprise should aim to make changes that require little development and change management time, with maximum return on investment. These small incremental changes can mitigate any short-term impacts on business continuity, buying you time to prepare for the peak of the crisis.
We can help you identify and implement quick and easy changes that can address the short-term consequences. In parallel, we will work on new integrations and system development, that will help you build long-term resilience against future crisis – natural or manmade.
Phase 3: Awareness – As employees adapt to their new work environments, you need to maintain ways for leadership to communicate with your teams. A change management framework will need to be implemented, communicating any new processes for employees to follow to fulfill their job role. All communications will need to be routed through digital means, with the adaptation of business-critical applications being prioritized to ensure business continuity while working remotely.
How Trianz can help you to avoid disruptions in business
COVID-19 will continue to bring unprecedented disruptions to businesses in the coming months, regardless of the industry as governments make significant interventions on movements, with the exception of essential travel.
Organizations need to create digital workplaces that are resilient despite being physically separate. Enterprise IT infrastructures must be able to take the weight of surging remote employee demand to ensure business continuity. We have successfully made the shift to 100% digital and can help you advance your own journey to tide over this pandemic. Get in touch!
