Is Your Business Ready for Coronavirus Lockdown? • Blisstech Solutions

With the COVID-19 coronavirus continuing to spread in the UK, and Italy and China placing lockdowns on their towns and cities, it seems likely that the UK will follow suit if the outbreak continues apace.  Experts have stated today that the spread of the virus in the UK is around 2 weeks behind Italy.  So it is likely that, in two weeks’ time, the UK could also be on lockdown. If employees are prevented from gathering, effectively being homebound, this is a worrying time for businesses.  However, many businesses can significantly mitigate the impact of a coronavirus lockdown by providing tools that allow employees to work more effectively from home.

What tools do you need?

Most desk-based workers will need a productivity suite, email, and a communication and collaboration platform. If you are not familiar with communication and collaboration platforms, they are applications that allow teams to share information, chat, collaborate and attend meetings.

a home working desk setup

Examples are Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts and Slack. These platforms allow your employees to work as if they were working in the same office enabling real-time collaboration.

Other applications that may be required are essential line of business (LOB) applications, and possibly, access to shared files.

What can you do?

So what exactly can you do to enable your employees to work from home?

Email

Email is easy as it has been possible to get email remotely for years. Most email is cloud-based, and even on-premise systems have the facility to connect remotely. If you don’t have this capability, look at something like Office 365 (Exchange Online) or Google G-Suite. There are many providers out there that offer cheaper email services. However, you get what you pay for and most of these are very basic.  I believe there is nothing available on the market today as good as the Google or Microsoft offerings.

Productivity Suite

If you are a Google G Suite customer you will get an online word processor, spreadsheet, presentation app. If you are an Office 365 customer you can use the web-based versions of Word, Excel & PowerPoint or install a copy of Microsoft Office on five computers per user.   This means you don’t need to give your employees a computer to work from home; they can work perfectly well on the home computer.

Collaboration Tools

a woman working with a virtual team

Both Microsoft and Google recently announced they will temporarily provide Microsoft Teams and Google Hangouts for free because of the coronavirus.  The Microsoft trial is a very generous 6 months for existing Microsoft business customers.  Having spoken to a contact at Microsoft they are genuinely doing this for the greater good to enable businesses to collaborate in the midst of this outbreak.  Microsoft Teams is an incredibly feature-rich collaboration tool, so signing up for this is a no-brainer if you are an eligible customer and do not already have a collaboration tool.

Line of Business Applications

If you have cloud-based line of business applications your users will be able to work remotely in pretty much exactly the same way as they do from the office. However, if the application is installed on a server in your office then you will have to provide a VPN.  A VPN is a secure tunnel that connects directly from a user’s computer to your business.  It is secure, if configured correctly, and provides your employees access to systems within your office.  If the system is a client/server application, users can connect to work PCs using remote desktop and work as they were in the office.  This will prevent the need for users to need to install the software on their home computers, although they will need help setting up the VPN.

Shared Files

If users need access to shared files in your office, you can use the VPN method to access them.  However, mapping drives from a home computer to a business server would not be recommended.  Without expensive systems in place, you cannot verify the security of computers you don’t control!  If users require access to shared files, it is best to provide a computer with your security software installed.  Or move to a cloud-based file storage solution.  Both Google G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 provide cloud file storage solutions that are worth checking out. These are called File Stream and Shared Drives for Google and OneDrive and SharePoint for Microsoft.

I hope this article helps you to understand how you can get prepared for any kind of lockdown that may be imposed because of the COVID-19 coronavirus.  If you want to learn how we can help you prepare, please get in touch.

More Content

Data loss? Save yourself a mighty headache

What would you do if all of your business data were lost? You might panic or stare at the screen in disbelief. However, if you're prepared, you'll have a safety net in place in the form of reliable and tested data backup. This means you can quickly restore your data...

Cyber attacks are getting bigger and smarter. Are you vulnerable?

Recently, the biggest ever DDoS attack was reportedly blocked. Worse still, more businesses are being targeted with criminals demanding huge ransoms

How to plan a big IT project

We all dream of making changes to our business that will make us more efficient and profitable, but significant changes to the technology you use to run your business should never be rushed.

Phishing – If you’re under pressure to take urgent action – stop and think

Phishing scams are one of the biggest security threats to your business right now and cybercriminals are always coming up with new phishing techniques. A massive 83% of organisations said they suffered successful attacks last year. And with just under a third of...
How to reopen a closed browser tab thumbnail

Tech Tip: How to quickly reopen a closed browser tab

Welcome to a new Tuesday tech tip video, and it's a really quick, but useful one This video shows how to quickly reopen a closed browser tab in Google Chrome or Edge. The video demonstrates a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+T) to restore the last closed tab. I will also...

Back up your data! One day it could save your business

Did you know that 60% of companies that lose their data will shut down within six months of the disaster? Don’t let your business fall into this statistic.

Getting to Grips with Email Security

Owners of small and medium-sized businesses often make the mistake of thinking that they aren’t on the criminals’ radar. But more than 40% of cyber attacks are aimed at small businesses – and email is usually the criminals’ way in. Our new guide, ‘Getting to Grips...

Ransomware Attacks Grow for Small Businesses

Two organisations have recently released reports on the state of ransomware and cybersecurity incidents affecting small businesses. Datto's State of the Channel Ransomware Report Datto has recently released their "State of the Channel Ransomware Report"  for 2019...

Tech Tip: Avoid this OneDrive AutoSave Pitfall

Welcome to a new Tuesday tech tip video. In it, I explain a OneDrive AutoSave pitfall that you should learn to avoid. If you use Microsoft Office applications and store your data in OneDrive, you are probably familiar with the AutoSave feature. This does precisely...
FOMO is driving businesses to spend more on IT 

FOMO is driving businesses to spend more on technology trends 

FOMO – the fear of missing out – can creep into many aspects of your life. This can include FOMO over business tech, which is driving many businesses to spend more. But are you making the right choices for your business?

Share This
Contact
Love Lane
Cleobury Mortimer
Shropshire DY14 8PE

01299 382 321
[email protected]
Copyright © 2024 Blisstech Solution Ltd
Registered No: 08125391 VAT No : 307 5490 05