How has the shift to a fully remote workforce impacted Service Delivery and Security?
What is the impact of Covid-19 to service delivery organization, as workers must work remote from physical NOC? Have there been security implications to providing remote access for workers?
Best Answers
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We have always had secure VPN connectivity, but the initial problems we encountered were some employees did not have high enough personal bandwidth to fully engage. For those that could still go into the office - social distancing was enforced until they could make arrangements to get higher bandwidth. We do NOT enforce video with conferencing and this has helped. At this time less than 1% go into offices - and our CEO has already announced a hybrid solution as we move into the "new normal".
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There has been no impact for existing staff. Services organisations are usually well-versed into working from home and the security measures to be taken. I expect most companies will have simply initiated their business continuity plan and measures. One area we hit a problem though was for new hires within countries where shipping of equipment is still also not allowed. We worked around these few instances by deploying "Desktop as a Service" technology that so far has proven reliable and secure.
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Our field services team (400+ strong) has been impacted as office facilities remain mostly closed. A rather pleasant surprise however has been within our PS team. We keep anticipating a downturn in utilization but we have continued to be close to fully occupied and are now close to fully booked to the end of June. We still might see a slow-down at that time but we're hopeful that the Covid PAUSE (phase 2), which we expect to include a focus on optimizing what our customers already have vs new, is a great time for health-checks, architectural road-maps, optimization assessments, etc. Time will tell.
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