In the San Francisco Bay Area, millions were told to work from home beginning on March 17, 2020. Some already were, some never had, and many were totally unprepared to do so.
Over the next several months, companies began to adjust to the new normal of nearly their entire workforce working remotely. It even became a hashtag: #wfh.
One of the major revelations emerging from this abrupt pivot in working arrangements was the central importance of communication software. While most enterprise companies had a cohesive suite of apps for teams to use to work together, SMBs on the other hand did not. They used whatever apps they thought were appropriate. Some apps worked really well to help keep things together, while other combinations lacked essential functionality.
And what about your business? Are the various apps you’re relying on truly secure to use in a remote environment? Do they provide for unified data storage or are you creating multiple streams of data that live only within this chat app or that video app’s recordings?
In the frantic rush to get everybody up and running from home, some strategic considerations were left behind in the office.
But now that the gradual and eventual move back to the office is on, an opportunity arises to evolve the office IT environment into something that is, – in comparison to its pre-pandemic state – more productive, collaborative, and secure.
Do you see the possibilities for something better? We do.
We’ve worked with multiple offices to install these significant changes:
- Take them from Slack chat to Microsoft Teams
- Take from Zoom or GoToMeeting to Teams
- Take them from Google Drive to SharePoint and OneDrive
- Take them from Exchange Online Plan 1 to Enterprise Level Encryption with E3
When our clients saw how they could keep their teams humming with greater security, more user level control, clearer paths to data, and less training on individual apps, they smiled.
So, businesses have the rare opportunity now, with the eventual move back to the office, to adopt an IT infrastructure that’s less chaotic, less vulnerable, more cohesive, and more controlled.
Take this time to look carefully at the foundation of your current in-house networks. We’ll venture to say that there’s probably plenty of room for upgrading, modernizing, and streamlining, along with other changes to keep you going strong for years to come.
If you’d like the type of strategic assistance that we’ve provided to our Bay Area clients as they transition back to the office, or at the very least just have a chat about the possibilities, please click the calendar link to set up a phone call or video meeting with Jimmy. He would be more than happy to talk with you confidentially about your current IT environment and some smart changes you might want to make.