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.
The victim's wife Rajeshwari and body-builder son Navneeth Shetty, who were taken into custody for interrogation, have reportedly confessed to the brutal murder.
Comments
he dint toook 34 lakhs with me i lied. b7t yeah he is a frnd of mine
i dint think my frnd navneeth would do like this. navneeth was a good frnd of mine he is a cheater nw he took 34 lakhas with me at 26 august cheater navvneeeèth......
Apparently, Navneet is a very ardent follower of Crime Patrol programme on TV. If people can raise fingers at Zakir Naik, and ban him and his teachings, and probe into his involvement in terrorism, then in this case, the channel and producers of Crime Patrol should also be charged with the same. I wonder where Arnab Goswami is hiding now!
What is the use of huge wealth, poor man killed by own people what did people involved achieved. We always talk of development education. What is meaning of education and development ? That old golden days we are far better than now where we did not had cc tv camera no proper road no public transport no powerful education institute but WE WERE SAFE ON THOSE GOLDEN OLD DAYS.
Hang all three ..shameless and merciless people
Tell the world that Naveen is impressed by Zakir Naik Lecture.
Where is the priest....arrest him for terrorizing that family..see which temple he went ..close it down..or ban his school....ha ha.....as you do with muslims
Very bad people, how can we trust this world...poor guy...
These people are family friends... We're all good people... I used to play with that boy as a kid.. I smell something fishy ..
Mage mallaye, Ammeg kullaye
He should have saved his life by staying in Saudi Arabia. India is not safe, people even get killed for having food, for honor, for rupees 15, for nothing, for rights etc.
Father rest in peace...
Someone make mother + Son piece piece...
Bastards.
need to give proper treatment to son and the mother , put inside the jail forever or hang them in public ...
from this incident all need to learn the lesson that even with wife we should not share all the details and income of our business .
Bhasker Shetty, an innocent face. The son built his body from his father's hard earned money.
Every father has to think twice doing any business with their own wife and sons ... Kaala Badalaagide.
Lost a nice husband, a nice father .. now stay in jail without husband, without father mother ... for long years.....
for what ???? for money??? ... thoo nim janma haalaga...
What a son!
What a wife!
What a priest!
What a society!
RIP brother Bhasker. You are gem. they dont deserve you.
Add new comment