Will Covid-19 change the look and feel of how businesses operate moving forward?
Alex Blackwell replies:
ALTHOUGH it has been common for employees to access corporate emails remotely on mobile phones for some time, the office remained the primary location for business activities to be actioned. Internal or external meetings, early starts or late finishes to complete activities or handovers with different time zones, or just separating work from home life. Has Covid caused a shift in the norm?
Since 30 March we have observed a demand to make internal systems available outside of the network edge in order to enable remote working and maintain businesses functions. Although there was initial concern around the forced change, it seems to have been embraced and, dare I say liked, by both employees and businesses owners alike.
Staff have remained productive, businesses operate, and offices and business travel are not the be-all and end-all. Could this see a shift in the adoption of hybrid working and flexibility for staff to be in the office or working from home?
Given the new trend towards and acceptance of remote working, it is driving businesses to re-evaluate their investment into their company, from office space to on-premise IT estate and software applications too. The ‘cloud’ is now a very stable, secure and affordable option to enable this transition.
When we talk about the cloud, our minds jump to cloud applications like Microsoft 365, or cloud storage such as Dropbox. However, we don’t often think of our desktop infrastructure.
At point of reading this article there is a high probability your desktop PC is sat under an empty desk, turned on, adding to your electricity bill and de-generating in doing so. It is common to replace these every five years due to failing parts, advances in software or demand for more computing capability.
These devices become the ball and chain tying employees to their office desks. This new hybrid shift can be addressed simply with cloud-hosted virtual desktops.
What are the benefits of VDI Virtual Desktop Infrastructure?
1. Retire the legacy desktops.
2. Allow employees to access their corporate desktop, on their own devices, from any location with an internet connection.
3. Scale your desktop estate up or down easily based on time of day, year or demand.
4. Upgrade the computing power or resources with a few clicks.
5. Convert office-based staff from PCs to thin clients, which are more affordable and have a longer mean time to failure.
This conversion drives mobility and availability, while significantly reducing the financial impact on a business.
Converting from CAPEX expense based on volume to a cloud-based pay-as-you go model gives you the option to reduce costs, scale on demand and run an efficient network based on an OPEX model, consuming resources you actually need, only when you need them, from any location.
Now is the time to look at a business transformation project adopting a cloud-first approach. Contact the Redcoin team to learn more.
