Remote working after COVID-19, according to Verizon

2020 will be remembered as the year in which the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world economy to its knees and sowed terror across the planet, but also as the season of a new drive for innovation and the rapid acceleration of smart. working. Some say they are setting foot in the era of the New Normality, made up of opportunities and challenges to be faced, first of all from a technological point of view, but not only.

Verizon Business' vision on the future of remote working

The signs of change are all there: + 47% in the use of tools for remote collaboration, + 40% for VPNs and + 33% for videoconferencing tools. A scenario is outlined on the horizon characterized by new dynamics to establish and regulate the relationship between the company and the workers. Organizations that aim to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage will have to address issues of a not only technological nature, but also related to people, attracting and retaining talents in new ways, stimulating the effectiveness of the commitment of employees and partners.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning and the cloud will prove to be of fundamental importance, but it will be first of all the professionals who will have to adapt, first of all from the point of view of skills and relationships. This is the comment of Sowmyanarayan Sampath, President of Global Enterprise of Verizon Business.

The incredible series of challenges generated by a remote workforce requires that all c-levels of an organization, CIO, CHRO and CISO, work together to find solutions. The CIO must be a proactive participant in driving change and must clearly demonstrate the link between the technology agenda and the employee value proposition. Allowing multiple employees to work remotely demonstrates (in the order of days not months) that this can work, and therefore can be part of the company's new operational plan.

In particular, CIOs are called to focus on what will be the "next wave of technological innovations", looking beyond current priorities. These are the questions to ask according to Sampath:

Is the remote access infrastructure solid enough to allow most employees to work remotely? are core business applications ready for the cloud or are you relying on cumbersome solutions that aren't easy to use as an alternative? Can collaboration solutions cope with a sharp increase in traffic volumes as users switch to virtual collaboration solutions? Is the widespread work environment really safe? Issues of fundamental importance to guarantee the necessary security to customer, corporate, financial and personal data, also in consideration of the intensification of attacks by cybercriminals recorded since the beginning of the crisis linked to COVID-19.