COVID-19 has become the most circulated word in 2020. This pandemic has already impacted the way organisations operate and will continue to fundamentally change them in the foreseeable future.

As this continues to impact our lives, remote working is our new reality. So, how do leaders, managers, & employees make this abrupt shift with minimal dips in efficiency? 

Since we have been implementing remote working since 2014, we have come up with some guidelines on how you & your employees can effectively transition into remote working. 

Any sudden change in the work environment is enough to disrupt operations if the business is not prepared or if it has not anticipated such a change. And this is exactly what is happening with most businesses today. In order to adjust to this new - hopefully temporary - “normal”, leaders should first prepare their employees mentally & should get the appropriate infrastructure to support remote working. 

• Do they have laptops for employees?
• Do they have the right software to perform their tasks? The right software to hold conference calls?
• Do they have the right software programs that MONITOR whether jobs are being fulfilled and operations effectively completed?

These are some of many things to consider during a transition like this.

We have listed below some pointers that have proven effective over our 6 years of implementing remote working: 

Communication

Aside from the operational side of things, leaders must ensure that their employees are ready to handle their new lifestyle. COMMUNICATE. Have a group conversation with employees assuring them that there is certainty in the midst of all their uncertainty. Team members should constantly feel like they know what’s going on.

“This is a different time for us. We don’t know how long this will last but we are here to support each other and lift each other up. We will make sure you have what you need to continue your work as “normally” as possible.”

This type of assurance will help ease employees into this lifestyle and give them confidence that it will work. It is also imperative to set recurring meetings just so there is clarity on things and so the “teamwork” vibes are sustained. Frequency of contact should be maintained to keep the connections people had at the office. 

Discipline

It can be quite a shock to the human being to go from one way of life to another in a short period of time. Psychologically, employees need to be ready. That’s why it is advised to encourage employees to develop disciplined rituals so that they can stay on top of their tasks and remain productive:

• Set your alarm early in the morning as if you’re heading to the office
• Freshen up, get dressed, & get ready for your day 
• Create a plan: “what are my tasks for today?” 
• Schedule your lunch/coffee breaks (minimise them to match your office breaks)

As for infrastructure requirements, we compiled a list of the most crucial systems you need to thrive today.

You see the end product but we’re bringing you closer to the people behind it !  

As one of our most successful partners to date, we sat down with BluGrass’s co-founder Hasan Alameddine to gain firsthand insight on the things they do and the types of human capital profiles that drive their success.  

Hasan has been in the IT industry for nine years with an education in Computer Science from the Lebanese American University in Beirut. He started as a CRM developer and was specialized in Microsoft products after he got his certification as a Microsoft Developer.

Hasan’s first enterprise experience in the UAE was as a CRM consultant in EMITAC, where he met Tony Alam and decided to jointly establish BluGrass.   

Since its inception 4 years ago, BluGrass has grown to a team of 40 IT professionals with 32 customer success stories under their belt and 80M dirhams in revenue from managed services.  Their primary market is the government sector with some focus on semi-government and private entities. 

They first started providing hardware maintenance services but identified a gap in the market and quickly shifted their business model to that of a whole managed services provider where they do consultation, implementation, support, and resource allocation pertaining to specific projects.  

What sets them apart from other service 

providers in their field is their consultation phase. Rather than going straight into implementation based on a customer’s request, they allocation a major portion of the project to perform a full consultation that involves a gap analysis report.

This is to be able to identify all aspects in a customer’s current state, their desired state, and the required transition phase, and thus defining every parameter of the project to ensure complete visibility. After that phase has governed the customer’s approval, they will move into the implementation phase with full management and support from their side.  

Since joining the Exceeders platform 2 years ago, they have been able to close 2 major deals in managed services.

Success story 

Recently, BluGrass signed a 5-year contract for a managed services project with a government-based investment company in the UAE. This entity collectively encompasses 6 other government agencies and an employee count that rakes up to 2000+. 

The project entails managing the customer’s whole IT systems from bare infrastructure (servers, storage, networking) and security to infra applications (underlaying windows applications ) and high-level business applications (ERP, CRM). 

LEARN MORE ABOUT BLUGRASS HERE 

Enterprise technology is a booming industry. Companies are developing software and portals that meet the needs of their customers and solves their problems. 

But the enterprise tech faces many issues that are threatening the success of new software. 

Digital transformation calls for significant shifts in business models and corporate culture, and portals play an important role in guiding audiences through that. 

Portals have evolved over the past 10 years, but they have always been defined by one core priority: delivering a personalised experience that filters out the noise and offers only what is relevant to the end-user. 

With the increasing emphasis on customer experience, portals remain a key part of any digital transformation strategy.

From the security to UI/UX, here are some of the biggest technological challenges faced by the enterprises with their portals today:

Integrating Old and New Applications

Integrating applications is a challenge that businesses often face. Sometimes newer technologies do not integrate well with out of date systems. These newer systems also prove to be an issue, as they act in isolation and are not able to be integrated. 

Due to this, operational and employee efficiency can take a huge hit. 

This is why it is important to check whether your existing systems can integrate with new technologies seamlessly. For example - your invoicing system should be compatible with your accounting tool, and your accounting tool should work with your CRM, which should work with your marketing tools, and so on. 

Cybersecurity is Much More Crucial

Data privacy and protection have been one of the major issues for enterprises in the past few years.

Even though there was a huge hype for GDPR for several months leading to its enforcement, only a few businesses managed to achieve full compliance thus far.

A survey by Talend found that most of the surveyed companies (around 70%) failed to comply with Article 15 and Article 20 of the GDPR, meaning that they are unable to provide a copy of users’ personal data on request within the allotted one-month time limit.

Mobility Poses Unique Challenges For Enterprises

With smartphones being the ubiquitous device for most people, it’s no surprise that businesses have embraced smartphones with full gusto. 

While the benefits of going mobile friendly are tangible and irreplaceable, the addition of mobility has posed new challenges which must be dealt with quickly and effectively.

This is essential for technology- and user based businesses so they may deliver a seamless and fully functional mobile experience.

UI/UX Needs Constant Modernization 

The need for a good User Interface/User Experience is now growing in importance. In the past, companies could get away with having a poor UI/UX for their portals.

Today, Function over Form simply doesn't suffice. 

It’s absolutely essential for companies to find that exact balance between looks and features and create products that meet requirements – both functionally and from a UI perspective.

In the past, enterprise portals didn’t always have the best UI/UX. Processes and products are complicated for large corporations, and thus the software they use become cumbersome.

As technology advances, businesses are putting more emphasis on UX, but getting it right is still a challenge. The problem is finding a delicate balance between the function of enterprise tech and how it interacts with users.

Growing Demands for  Digital Experiences

New technology, especially in the form of connected devices, is growing and influencing the expectations of users for digital experiences.

• 35.6 million Americans use a voice-activated assistant device at least once a month in 2017.
  
• B2B IoT devices such as industrial sensors or in-store analysis devices will grow from 2.5 billion connections in 2017 to 5.4 billion devices in 2020.
• Wearable devices will grow from 28.3 million units sold in 2016 to 82.5 million units in 2020.
• 40% of consumers do not care whether a chatbot or a real human helps them, as long as they are getting the help they need.

How might the growth of these devices impact the content within your portal?

Employee portals may need to include data analytics drawn from industrial sensors in factories. 

Customer portals might need to be viewable on smartwatches or other wearables. Chatbots and voice may be able to replace traditional search, but require more natural content and possibly AI software to execute. 

Enterprises need to view new technology and devices as part of a unified, omnichannel strategy to get the most of out of their technology investments and leverage data across the organisation.

The software needs to be complicated enough to effectively solve problems, but simple enough for end-users to use easily.

Want to learn more about four types of portals that solve enterprise problems?

Download this FREE E-book 

4 Portal Types Solving Enterprise Problems

In this e-book, you will learn:

• How modern portals solve common problems in digital business
• Best practices for designing different types of portals
• How digital leaders use portals to achieve concrete benefits
• How portals will be influenced by new technology trends

Download Here!