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.
Comments
Good to see new names occurring to defame Minorities.. Keep going guys.. I guess many new names are on the way still to mock Minorities.. Good luck.. God Bless you..
Some in this thread are proud of being Hindu Nationalist and people like me are proud being Indian Muslim...
And thats why my country name comes first.....
Nevertheless, the so called fake bajrangis. chaddis etc... can't be called patriots of our country. because they dont beleive in unity and they always want to divide country in the name of religion and no matter how much they try.....they will never be successful
As a Hindu, I am proud of Nikhithraj , who had expressed anger against those who raise anti-national slogans and backstab motherland. Whatever my friend Nikhithraj had said that is 100% correct.
A SIMPLE TRUTH
80% of JNU students are Hindus, that is also from Northern India, where Northern India called as Hub of Hinduism.
How these people can be anti national or committed sedition.
The students and staff both are against the central gov't. They are indeed intelligent students, staff in JNU, unlike some others.
You Bhajees label yourself as the only Patriots and others as anti nationals. If you are a true patriot, be obedient to the National constitution. Even you are not a pure Hindu. You are spoiling the name and image of Hindu culture. Because of your ideology Hinduism is very faster diminishing and other religions like Christianity and Islam is growing at the fastest rate which was never before.
Any way, if not you, at least your offspring are coming out from your clutches and following the right path but not your portrayed Hindu culture. They will be real Hindus. If they are real Hindus, then they will choose what they have to be.
Its nice to see so many Hindu brothers and sisters are gathered in colourful function ...what is the main agenda behind this kind of gathering to prove what ? Provoke one community against another ? .. Its true government should take an proper action against goons who had called anti national slogan .. and its clearly shown who were there behind this drama.
As we all seen SDPI or any of its wing never done something wrong which divide india or effect our Indian democracy and it seems they are the who trying to save indian secularism, but we feel RSS and its wings always tried to divide india by religion or cast and they always raise their saffron flag instead of Tricolour Indian Flag.
People should think about political , religious or any party leaders, they are getting their daily bread from where ? Look at the past history of MP, MLA and other members ..they all given hate speech and recognized by people and later they forget them as well.
here we should use our common sense.. regardless of religion for our daily bread and other things we common man should work hard.. there is no logic behind hate one another ... no single common person will get tax free life, no one will wave up our utility bills or supply daily food ... so we all should stand as Indian to show the power of India ..
Hindu Samavesha - only hate and politics speech????
No any good message from the Hindu religion??
IF RSS AND BD HAS REAL LOVE TO OUR MOTHER LAND INDIA THEY NEED TO RAISE THE NATIONAL FLAG NOT THEIR SAFFRON FLAG ..
Y R U RAISING THE SAFFRON COLOR FLAG PLEASE DONT TEACH US THE TO LOVE THE NATION WE KNOW VERY WELL THAN UU
WE MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS AND OTHER RELIGIONS WE KNOW.. WE LOVE OUR INDIA MORE THAN UUUU ,
YOU ARE ACTING LIKE THAT U R THE ONE RSS AND BD WHO DIRECTLY FIGHT WITH BRITISH AND MADE INDIA INDEPENDENT..
.
U R ANTI NATIONALS ATTACKING CLUB, LADIE, BAR , COLLEGES SCHOOLS, BEEF EATERS, CHURCHES, MOSQUE ..
DID U HEAR TILL NOW THAT CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM COMMUNITY ATTACKED THE TEMPLE, BARS, CLUBS? AND BECAUSE OUR RELIGION DOES NOT TEACH US THAT TO ATTACK THE INNOCENT ..
U R THE ONE WHO EDITED THE AUDIO OF JNU TO ANTI SLOGAN NOT US AND IT PROVED......
THIS IS U R ACCHE DIN WHA WHA WHA... U RECIEVED BIHAR RESULT RIGHT WAIT AND SEE IN FUTURE,,
SDPI is a part of BJP, they help gain more seats in recently held election....
oppose modi, oppose BJP, oppose RSS but dont support Pakistanis or who wants to divide India whose slogans are anti national.
anti-national elements who shouted anti-India slogans, should be detained quickly.
Anti-national slogans r not at all good.. But what our govt.is doing? shoot them to kill.
totally wrong statement.
My heart cries after seeing those people who shouted anti national slogans. Shame on you.
who gave rights to univ students to endorse anti India slogans, congress gaining, but still loosing, truth always stand next to BJP
Anti National Slogans are Minor Issues\ - Paid MSMS YET they all are barking endlessly over this issue!! Strange!"
Freedom of speech doesn't mean you raise anti-national slogans.
If anti-national slogans are raised & then they are supported,I think there can be nothing worse than that
I feel angry over anti-national slogans raised in some universities. this people should be in jail for life time.
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