While it makes perfect sense for IT employees to work from remote locations via video conferencing and collaboration tools seamlessly - especially in the case of tech giants like Google or Microsoft -- workers from the non-IT companies and small and medium enterprises (SMBs) are the worst-hit in India as most of them have little or no clue about how these messaging and collaboration tools work amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Small companies -- from corporate to education verticals -- are scrambling to get their act together as new coronavirus threat has reached their premises, prompting them to send employees home who have age-old laptops, poor network and connectivity with no UPS backups and little knowledge about how to handle group chat and collaboration software like Zoom, Google Hangouts Meet, Microsoft Teams and Flock etc.
Instead of halting operations, however, businesses can choose to shift towards remote working methods with teaching non-IT staff on how to use the latest digital software to connect and work, say industry experts.
The training will take some time and may hamper productivity in the short run but is a win-win situation for the non-tech companies in the long run, in case any such global emergency arises in the future.
According to a latest report by Gartner, 54 per cent of HR leaders have cited that poor technology and/or infrastructure for remote working is the biggest barrier to effective remote working.
Sandy Shen, Senior Director Analyst, Gartner, says that with COVID-19 disrupting the business landscape, CIOs should relook at the digital fulfillment of market demand.
"The value of digital channels, products and operations is immediately obvious to companies everywhere right now. This is a wake-up call for organisations that have placed too much focus on daily operational needs at the expense of investing in digital business and long-term resilience," warned Shen.
Businesses that can shift technology capacity and investments to digital platforms will mitigate the impact of the outbreak and keep their companies running smoothly now, and over the long term.
"Videoconferencing, messaging, collaboration tools and document sharing are just a few examples of technologies that facilitate remote work. Additional bandwidth and network capacity may also be needed, given the increasing number of users and volume of communications," informed Shen.
The IT industry's apex body Nasscom has asked the government to relax norms for a month to allow work-from-home for technology and back-office employees as a measure to deal with the spread of Covid-19 in India.
Networking giant Cisco said that it has seen "significant growth" in the usage of its web conferencing and video-conferencing service Webex in India.
According to Muneer Ahmad, Business Head, ViewSonic India, due to COVID-19 pandemic, the corporate and educational sector is severely getting affected in the country.
"ViewSonic IFP has a cloud-based software which help teachers and corporates to connect through video conferencing to multiple people at the same time and can split the screen into six screens. It can also connect with various tools like Skype, Cisco WebEx, Zoom, Google Hangouts and GoToMeeting," Ahmad told IANS.
Co-working sector has also taken a hit and the industry is looking at several measures to tackle it -- from ensuring supply of juices rich in Vitamin C to supply of disinfectants and giving work from home facilities.
"The scheduled visits of the clients at our co-working offices have been postponed. Few of our clients have cancelled their outstation meetings and have now started audio/video conferencing for virtual meetings," said Nakul Mathur, MD, Avanta India.
According to reports, India has approximately 1,000 co-working locations (as of September 2019) and is the second-largest market for the co-working industry after China.
As India's first licensed B2B Virtual Network Operator, CloudConnect Communications offers a collaborative platform that allows companies to overcome the COVID-19 threat while maintaining seamless business continuity and optimum employee productivity.
"We offer a secure, robust, reliable, scalable and trackable mobile-first unified communication infrastructure that aids remote teleworking so that businesses can continue operating even under any unforeseen circumstances," said Gokul Tandon, Executive Chairman, CloudConnect Communications.
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Trials of drug dexamethasone in Covid-19 cases have brought success in saving lives , claim Oxford University scientists on 16 June 2020.
According to news reports on 16 June , 2020 , Oxford University Scientists have conducted trials on anti-inflammatory steroid Dexamethasone in Covid-19 cases. Results released by the Oxford University on 16 June 2020 say that the low-cost and easily available drug saves the people seriously infected by Coronavirus , cuts the death risk by a third for those on ventilators and by a fifth for those on oxygen. The commentary on the drug reads like this :-
“ This is a tremendous news today from the recovery trial showing that dexamethasone is the first drug to reduce mortality from Covid-19. It is particularly exciting as this is an inexpensive widely available medicine. This is a ground breaking development in our fight against the disease and the speed at which researchers have progressed finding an effective treatment , is truly remarkable. It shows importance of doing high quality clinical trials and basing decisions as the results of those trials”.
Covid-19 has taken into its grip the entire world during first half of the year 2020 , infecting lacs and killing also lacs of its patients. In the absence of an effective drug or vaccine , people had no choice other than to look up to the heavens or scientists to come with some cure. And the drug described here is the first one to respond to the prayer of the global community , it seems. As regards a vaccine , only few are claiming that it can come by the end of the present year 2020. Rather , some are of the view that it may take a larger part of the year 2021 and could even go to mid-2022. Whatever that scenario about prospect of arrival of vaccine to treat Covid-19 may be , the news that was broken on 16 June 2020 by the Oxford University scientists in relation to drug dexamethasone would have sent a wave of strength and hope among people world-wide. And this Vedic astrology writer was spirited for another reason as well - a prediction of when some relief by way of drug to fight Covid-19 may appear , having come accurate in the claim announced by Oxford University on 16 June 2020. This writer had , based on interpretation and application of Vedic astrology , contributed in early April , 2020 an opinion piece - “ Some searchlight on way out of Covid-19 presently tormenting mankind” - to a number of newspapers. It was also contributed on 11 April , 2020 using the ‘ comments’ column of article -‘ Heard Charles took Ayurveda treatment-based Ayush drugs for Covid-19’ - at theprint.in/india/looking-at-evidence-based-ayush-medicines-to-treat-covid-19-minister-shripad-naik/393407/. The text in the opinion piece related to the claim of success announced by Oxford University scientists on 16 June , 2020 , reads like this :-
“ So reading in between the lines , it can be said that some effective drug or remedy can arrive by mid or towards the last week of June 2020 to provide some relief during July to September 2020 , to some good extent”.
The point this writer wants to share with readers world-wide is that yes , a drug envisaged in the aforesaid prediction has appeared on the horizon in the claim announcement of Oxord University scientists on 16 June , 2020.
Bio :-
Kushal kumar ,
202-GH28 , Mansarovar Apartments ,
Sector 20 , Panchkula-134116 , Haryana,
India.
Note :- This writer’s significant predictive work covering 2020 about the U.S. and Italy
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