In the last few weeks, as we all know, the nature of ‘work’ has changed, maybe forever.
So, what happened?
Faced with immediately transitioning thousands to working from home, hundreds of organisations were left scrambling to ensure systems were even functioning, let alone scalable.
Suddenly “Can our system do that remotely?”, “How do we manage additional users?”, and “Do we even have enough laptops?” became priority questions.
For some organisations, there wasn’t enough bandwidth to accommodate hundreds of users. User dropouts, lost files, and systems were brought to their knees. The system itself could be robust and work well, but the infrastructure couldn’t handle the sudden and massive influx of people and demand for data.
For other organisations, those one or two key files were only available locally, condemning a brave soul to venture into the socially distant wasteland of outside, with a mission to procure precious Excel spreadsheets for the team.
Organisations with older systems especially struggled. We all know the pain that is opening and updating those massive Finance Excel spreadsheets, let alone through a remote connection. Not everyone has amazing domestic internet either, uploading a changed document to the server on ADSL can take upwards of 20 minutes.
At Taysols, we’re a leading supplier of cloud solutions to the finance departments of Australia’s largest companies.
What have we found?
While the initial period of insane disruption to workflow caused issues for many organisations, there were some winners: early adopters.
Acquiescing to the current demand of working from home flexibility, some organisations had policies, plans, and systems, in place for their employees to work remotely. Due to their size, other organisations were already utilising digital hosted platforms for large swathes of their workforce.
For many of these organisations, it’s (relatively) business as usual.
That isn’t to say there wasn’t a myriad of hurdles to overcome. Sometimes, despite rigorous testing, it isn’t until you throw hundreds, or thousands of remote users into a system, do issues become apparent.
Luckily, with modern systems, their robustness lies in their distributed processing – the Cloud. If the Cloud needs more power, it can borrow it from another server, and another server, and another server - you get the idea.
Great cloud solutions are hosted in secured environments made specifically to handle sensitive data, multiple simultaneous users, and an insane amount of digital traffic. Perfect for facilitating a remote workforce.
Key relationships with strategic partners were also tested, as often one cannot do business without the other. Immediately, calls and concerns were raised “What’s your pandemic plan?” and “How can you ensure business continuity”. It never has been more important to rely on expert partners with relevant accreditations, such as ASAE3402 Type 2, to ensure business as usual during this time.
While we can’t all be early adopters, there’s still opportunity to turn this current critical time to your organisation’s advantage.
In our upcoming webinar, we’ll be covering important tips and hints on how a finance department can effectively, or even greatly improve, their efficiency with a remote workforce.
If you’d like to find out more, click here.