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
I agree with you but, if something happens to her family by these hoodlums, it will be a huge news, not only Karnataka will lose credibility, but these hoodlums will gain reputation and notoriety, which would be very unfortunately.
It would mean that Karnataka has fallen to a level of dystopia. international news, will have field day adding bad repo to our nation.
All life be it farmer, beggar or star has to be protected as citizens..
Actually the best way would be to arrest the people starting such campaign’s and issuing bounty’s.
And what about the police, law and order, constitution?
The movie glorifies Rajputs, there bravery and Valery is highlighted.
there is not even a single frame shared by both the actors.
And India currently has bigger issues than this to be tackled
Dear Gopal, "no offence but If you do some research before putting forth such statement
you will find out that this is a real issue
- here is a link from Hindustan time also for your reference
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/padmavati-row-haryana-bjp-leader-announces-rs-10-crore-reward-for-beheading-deepika-padukone-bhansali/story-SNu3xwOyMQmJU3fNzbSVyL.html
First of all this is extremely wrong from an elected individual, its not from a teacher
scholar etc it is from Haryana’s BJP chief media coordinator Suraj Pal..
It appears to be a diversion tactic,
so that focus is changed from actual issues.
Padmavati producer includes Viacom company which is owned by Mukesh amabani.
Now first of all this action done by this representative - is wrong lets agree to it.
As for fatwa ( not patwa) let me enlithen you. Fatwa means opinion in arabic language , So if you have an opinion it can also be called as your fawa in arabic…
Lastly there has always been a huge cry on any fatwa’s issued, I am surprised your comment meant that this fatwa went unnoticed.
But generally this fatwas are given by idiots who don’t have any bite but only barks
whear as if a d&* is capable of biting then precautions have to be taken for protection of the intimidated individual."please think with open mind and without color glasses, there is no need to polorasie everything
DKS, please check what is happening with poor farmers. Deepika is celebrity & she can afford security. When she has not asked for security, why the hell r u bothered. There is no better work these politicians just to show up in media & become HERO. Y is karnataka govt bothered? she is all time in Mumbai. Let her shell out money & get security. Why tax payers money is wasted for such celebrity who loot public by displaying movie and cinemas. JAGO JANTHA JAGO !
I understand films have been made in the past based on Padmini. Kamonar Agun or Flames of Flesh (1930), Maharani Padmini (1964) in Hindi, Chittoor Rani Padmini (1963) in Tamil starring Sivaji Ganesan and Vyjayanthimala. Wonder how these stories were told ! Surely Bhansali would have glamourised it, going by his past ventures !
At this rate, we will have curbs of freedom of speech and we will all need police protection. Wonder what is happening to the sense and sensibilities of our people. No tolerance, no patience with 'my way or the highway' attitude. This fanatical attitude will soon destroy the nation!
Who is D K Shivakumar? Is he Judge of supreme court ? what is his jurisdiction? What did he do when his govt was directly responsible for Suicide of honest officer like D K Ravi and DYSP Ganapathi? Shameless people in power
Any difference between bounty and fatwa. leaves me wondering. where are we heading
Hell with film Padmavathi. Karni sena and BJP should intensify protest. VHP, RSS, Sri Rama sena, ABVP should join the protest for ban
Looks like DK already have some clue. So raising protection request. Hope it is not from internal news where they want to do something to say something against BJP. But he never raises concern on Patwa raised by Muslim groups. Strange???
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