Move to a Remote Workforce During COVID-19: 3 Tips for CIOs

Not a Remote Type of Business? How to Go Remote in the Wake of COVID-19

Throughout the United States, businesses are in the midst of transitioning their employees to working remotely. But what do you do if you’re the CIO of a large organization, and your company isn’t set up for telecommuting?

First things first: don’t panic. Some of the world’s largest and most successful businesses have had employees working from home for years. In fact, you may find that having your employees work from home saves your organization money -- and you might keep some employees working from home one this crisis is over.

Still, we know it can be challenging to make the transition to a remote workforce during COVID-19. With this in mind, we’ve put together our top three tips for CIOs facing this challenge.

Tip #1: Transition to the Cloud 

If your business is still using on-premise file servers, it’s time to move to the cloud.

With a network share, your employees can’t access the files and systems they need unless they’re physically connected to their office network. The only way around this is with a VPN solution -- but this can be costly and time consuming from an IT perspective.

A much better approach is to transition to the cloud with Microsoft Office 365. This allows employees to access their email and documents remotely, without the need to log in from their work computer. The connection is completely secure, too, which will give you the peace of mind you need with so many employees working from home.

Tip #2: Configuring Legacy Client/Server Applications with Microsoft Azure

From our experience, most organizations have at least one or two legacy client/server applications that they depend on. Unlike Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), these applications are physically housed on a work computer. If that work computer is a desktop computer sitting in an employee’s office, employees won’t be able to access that application remotely -- and that makes it impossible for them to do their job from home.

Right? Wrong!

With Microsoft Azure, you can set up a remote desktop which employees can access from home. This gives your developers access to their workstations from the convenience of their home offices, while your business team can access the applications they need from a web browser on any device. The best part? Azure makes the whole process easy, allowing your organization to deploy a remote desktop solution in a matter of hours.

Tip #3: Help Teams Collaborate

One of the biggest challenges that teams working from home face is the lack of face-to-face interaction. This can lead to lower productivity, poor communication, and feelings of isolation.

But all of this can be easily overcome. How? By setting your employees up for success with Microsoft Teams. With Teams running on each employee’s desktop, it’s easy to see who’s online at any given time, share documents between team members, and chat face-to-face via video conferencing as needed. The paid version of Teams makes remote collaboration easier than ever, giving team members the ability to work together on a project and track progress along the way.

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Seize the Opportunity: Modernize Your Organization 

Even before COVID-19 struck, there was a clear trend underway: successful businesses were transitioning to the cloud.

While the circumstances we’re currently faced with are admittedly challenging, they also present organizations with an opportunity to modernize. By getting your business set up in the cloud and utilizing technology such as Microsoft Azure, you can give your employees the ability to work from anywhere.

Transitioning your team to work remotely doesn’t have to be expensive, complicated or time-consuming. If you need assistance getting started with Microsoft Azure or Dynamics 365 ERP software, we’re here to help.

Take a look at The Sudden Need to Work Remotely: How This Company Transitioned 500 Users in Just One Weekend with a Cost-Effective Solution on Microsoft Azure to learn how AKA helped one large company transition its workforce to work remotely in a matter of days. Ready to take the next step? Contact AKA Enterprise Solutions to discuss your needs.

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Article by: Greg Inks | 212-502-3900

With two decades specializing in Microsoft and Azure platforms, Greg leads AKA's Cloud practice. He is a Cloud evangelist offering deep expertise in Cloud architectures and adoption strategy. Greg has developed subject-matter expertise and wide-ranging business acumen by working with some of the largest, most successful technology providers and client companies on the planet.