Is your business ready to Work from Home ?
COVID-19 or Corona Virus is here and regretfully it’s already having an impact on day to day life.
Here’ we’ll take a look at the technology you need to make working from home successful and I will leave it to qualified medical people to comment on the medical side of COVID-19 aka the Corona Virus. 
The good news is that if you have adopted the Cloud for your major business systems then you very likely have the tools you need to stay productive and if you haven’t then it’s not too late to take steps, all you need is a Certified Office 365 Expert to get you going and that can happen quickly.
With over 20 years IT experience with large companies like Comalco, CRA, Vodafone, Coles Myer, Australia Post and small and medium businesses we’ve the experience and skills to sort your cloud needs now. Call 03 9005 4686 to speak to a professional or reach out to David on LinkedIn to get ready for working from home in a secure, compliant manner and see how you too can transform the way you work bringing improved productivity and efficiencies to your business.
We’re MS-100 Certified which validates our the skills and knowledge to evaluate, plan, migrate, deploy, and manage Microsoft 365 services for the Enterprise and includes Identity, Security & Compliance management and supporting technologies.
Staying Productive & Accessing Company Data
In short, if you’re already connected to Office 365 and making use of SharePoint, Teams and other collaboration tools then you have options and it may well be quite seamless. If not in the cloud and want help then we’re here for you. Our customers can work anywhere, anytime and are free to utilise the cloud to minimise the impact of Corona Virus isolation.
If you need to speak to an expert to see what can be done then we’re here for you and we can remotely assist in many cases.
What do your staff need ?
Essentially if your workplace has adopted cloud then all most staff should need is a computer, a phone or something to do 2FA and an internet connection combined with a well managed IT environment. If you don’t trust your staff’s home computers then sending their work PC home with them will work if you’re 100% cloud or perhaps consider getting some laptops setup as your COVID-19 KIT.
If you need antivirus on staff’s home PC’s then we can advise you there as needed but cannot make a blanket statement here as each business will have unique needs and risks.
We always recommend Windows 10 Professional but MACs work too.
Trust and Identity
Protecting your data online is critical so make sure you have 2FA, Conditional Access and Legacy Protocols disabled at a minimum. You need to be sure your data and any info you may hold on your clients is protected.
We can do an audit for you and give you a report if you’re not sure about your environment or how to go about cloud security or remote working. Your initial telephone consult is free..
We recommend the use of Lastpass but there are other password managers so you can run highly secure, unique passwords for every site. This way if one site is compromised then your other sites remain secure.
Office 365 Tools
Office 365 provides the full suit of tools we’re all used to including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, Yammer (like a private social channel), Forms (similar to Mailchimp), Planner (similar to Monday.com’s resource/schedule planning). The value presented is awesome and just as importantly it’s integrated into one ecosystem.
Microsoft’s 365 platform works well on both PC and MAC alike and there’s mobile apps all products.
Online Meetings
We use Microsoft Teams to run our online meetings with remote or traveling staff.
Microsoft Teams is great for:
- Face to face video meetings with your staff and those outside your organisation too (even if you’re liaising with someone outside your business who doesn’t have Office 365 there’s a free Teams Client they can use)
- Sharing screens and training
- Persistent chat reduces emails
- Accessing shared documents and supports co-authoring (concurrent editing of same Office document).
- Recorded meetings go to our Microsoft Stream account (included in Microsoft 365 Business) where they are automatically transcribed and made text searchable.
- Of course there’s a Mobile App for Teams too.
If you don’t have Office 365 and want to get up & running quickly then ask us about Microsoft’s special trial of Office 365 E1 available to selected sectors. We normally recommend Microsoft 365 Business but if your needs are limited then this offer may suit for now – lets discuss and see where you’re at.
Cloud Security
We utilise the advanced security features in the Office 365 platform to know where our data is used and when and it raises alerts when anomalies occur like the first time data is accessed from a country or if there’s an impossible travel (data access from two locations within a time frame that’s impossible to achieve without time travel – eg Data access in Sydney and LA within 30 mins would be impossible).
IP (VOIP) Phones
Most of our customers already have IP Phones, these allow your business to answer calls on a phone not tethered to a traditional phone line. With IP phones you can have one PABX (so to speak) distributed across your traditional office AND home offices and remote offices alike.
When opting to work from home our customers can send their IP (VOIP) handsets home and we can easily extend their work phone system to also include key mobiles allowing them to receive incoming business calls to their main number on their mobiles.
Making the Most of Quarantine ?
With staff quarantined at home they are still on the clock and being paid so why not make the most of the time they have by filling in the gaps in their day with some training.
Our Self-Paced, Targeted Office 365 training platform will allow your staff to utilise downtime to learn more about working in the cloud so when they return to work they’re better skilled.
Your business wins too, higher skilled staff means a more productive workplace. Our training system is great value, per person per month and only needs a computer with an internet connection.
Solve Business Services
At Solve Business Services we specialise in Microsoft 365 and enable business customers to work from wherever they want, whenever they want with a secure, unified and integrated platform.
Adopting the cloud has other benefits besides being prepared for pandemics and the like; your younger recruits will feel more at home with apps and cloud systems than traditional on premise servers and we’ve also seen higher retention rates for talented staff if you give them the cloud systems they are expecting of a modern workplace.