TECHNOLOGY

COVID-19 Business Requirements by: Harry Bridger, CEO, InLigo

The COVID-19 crisis may not be over yet, but its initial winds have blown through Fortune 500 companies and smaller Bay County businesses with similar effect. As the dust settles and public health concerns continue to add pressure to businesses operations, the questions facing large and small companies are similar when it comes to how to move forward after these first 3 months of changes wrought by the pandemic. We will call these considerations a “Post-COVID” or “Phase-2” mindset. After pivoting to meet the immediate challenges of lost revenue and workforce upheaval created by the pandemic, two important questions are emerging:

What changes has our business already made that need to be adopted and normalized as new routines?

How much more change is needed to help the balance sheet improve (for the remainder of 2020 and beyond?)

Many businesses have already implemented new technologies that enable a virtual office, and their employees have, by now, learned how to work from home. A good example of this Phase-2 thinking comes from Ohio-based Nationwide Insurance. In late April, Nationwide announced a permanent transition to a hybrid operating model that entails closing 5 regional offices, including the company’s Gainesville, FL facilities. This enormous cost saving move was made possible because the company had made technology investments that enabled remote workers to continue servicing its customers and because the employees rose to the occasion and remained efficient under the new operating model. CEO Kirt Walker said, “Our associates and our technology team have proven to us that we can serve our members and partners with extraordinary care with a large portion of our team working from home.”

Operational Assessments

So, what would Phase-2 thinking mean to you? Now is the time to assess what is working and what needs to improve; ask your teams which part of your operations worked well after the transition and what did not. Now is a good time to inventory the workloads you moved to a virtual office environment and rate them. Documenting them to pinpoint areas where improvement is needed will be helpful. Are these activities your team needs to conduct face to face in the same room or is the required collaboration possible in a remote or “virtualized” work environment? By workloads, we mean repetitive (and we hope – reliable and effective) processes like invoicing, accounts payable, vendor management, sales pipeline management, or service scheduling assigned to and managed by your employees.

Staffing Assessments

Once your workloads are defined, consider your staffing needs also because this might be your best opportunity in years to shift to a more flexible contingent or part-time workforce. Written prior to the Covid-19 crisis, Intuit’s 2020 report on small business noted that up to 30% of America’s workforce is contingent (ie. works on a contract basis) and that 80% of large corporations plan to increase their use of a flexible workforce substantially in coming years. The pandemic will undoubtedly accelerate these trends. The same report predicts small businesses will create their own “collaborative networks of contingent workers,” minimizing fixed

labor costs and expanding pools of available talent. Consider the opportunities for local chambers of commerce and staffing agencies that get ahead of these trends. Furthermore, consider what is possible if your business technology investments are in place to support a flexible workforce. Can you maintain a workforce that is 100% remote and ditch the lease on your office space? If that is not possible, can you rotate staff so only a portion of those workers are in the office at the same time, while another platoon is working from home? Are you able to outsource any of the “vituralized” workloads to freelancers or temporary staff?

Technology Assessments

Phase 2 thinking, for small businesses and large businesses alike, will mean thinking about ways to improve upon the users’ experiences with technology. Once those experiences improve, then resistance to adoption fades and business owners will realize the ROI promised by technology companies sooner.

Let’s look at the use of video conferencing as an example of the way technology was deployed immediately after shelter-in-place orders required people to work from home. In April, the communications company Zoom boasted about a peak of “300 million daily participants, free and paid, joining Zoom meetings in April 2020, up from 10 million in December 2019.” That explosive growth included many users new to the experience of online meetings and it’s a safe bet most of these meetings during the April peak were launched on the free version of the software. In the scramble to adjust to the new reality, well-meaning and industrious people were finding ways to communicate and create a virtual office experience using whatever they could get their hands on.

Business owners in Phase-2 should be thinking of ways to both enrich the initial experience of online meetings and, if they haven’t already, bring the administration and security of that experience in-house. Would your business benefit by adopting a unified 1`communications platform that extend the capabilities of webbased video conferencing to include more features? Voice, pbx, presence, and instant messaging are key features delivered by Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) providers, (see fig 1) and they are the cloud-based cornerstone of any virtual office setup. Wouldn’t you like to know that your company’s assets, ideas, and initiatives are secure across that platform? Patchworks of free applications running on your employee’s devices over the open internet are not the solution if you’re serious about managing a modern workplace.

Commit to the Cloud

Just as UCaaS can be a cost-effective way to re-tool your office in the cloud, Virtual Private Networks, Virtual Desktops, Mobile Device Management and Mobile App Management are easily deployed and managed in the cloud. These services are affordable and scalable; they are designed to give your employees what they need (and, perhaps more importantly, *only* what they need) to be productive contributors in a WFH or mobile environment. The growth trends in these service models that existed prior to the Covid-19 crisis was impressive and primarily driven by large corporate customers. Now that it looks like there is no going back to the office as we knew it, small businesses are discovering that these services are readily available to them also.

Make it Official

As you plan a path forward, employees, investors, partners, vendors and, of course, your customers need to know about your business’ new reality. Since the old rules around work may not apply anymore, you will benefit from setting policies that are easy to communicate and easy for those stakeholders to understand. For example, a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Policy is super important in cloud-based, modern work environments. A DLP Policy should be a simple articulation of rules and easily understood by your employees. You can walk the talk on the policy by implementing Data Loss Prevention tools and showing users how to apply them and how they support the policy. Also, consider creating a work from home policy that applies to this Post-Covid climate. The Society for Human Resource Management, or SHRM, has templates that can help you define policies and agreements around flexible staffing and telecommuting. Finally, your customers will need to know you comply with data security policies and standards like those from the Payment Card Industry (PCI), the Health Insurance Industry (HIPAA) or US Dept. of Commerce (NIST). The data security standards for these agencies and industry councils are rigorous and your customers that bank on these policies will need to know that your new IT and staffing environment continues to meet those standards.

Congratulations

Congratulations are in order if your business has found level water and maintained some cashflow after the turbulence of these last three months. We know it has not been easy, but now is the time to sharpen your focus and get real about the infrastructure your business needs. Reviewing core processes, staffing needs and technologies should lead you to conclusions about your business routines, human resources and IT investments that prepare you for the next few years of fragmented work environments.

Intellichoice Builders, LLC – Building Smarter starts here!

As one of the premier

builders in Bay, Walton and Gulf Coun9es, Intellichoice Builders brings a fresh level of professionalism and quality to all the projects that they work on. The staff at Intellichoice brings a wealth of knowledge and level of service that is above and beyond the norm. They are state licensed (CGC 1526169) and perform all types of construc9on: design/build, new construc9on, remodel, or addi9ons, on both commercial and residen9al projects. With over 20 years of experience, Robert Yanchis, one of the owners, says, “ I’ve worked all over the State of Florida, in numerous states throughout the Southeast and even in the Caribbean, but this area of Florida is unique when it comes to contrac9ng. The pricing is higher due to a rela9vely small trained workforce.” Intellichoice Builders prides itself on partnering with experienced subcontractors/ tradesman and working with them to develop rela9onships for long term success. “By working with the same tradesmen repeatedly, you get to understand how they work, and they understand our expecta9ons and procedures which ul9mately makes the projects flow more smoothly,” said Juan Gonzalez, Owner.

their homes for the last two years to get back home. At the same 9me, they are respec9ng orders from authori9es and prac9cing safety as much as physically possible. They want to provide a safe work environment for both their clients, construc9on partners and their workers. Their project management so`ware is internet based and links the client to the project without needing to have in person interac9ons. They can record finish selec9ons, change orders, RFI’s, etc. They were already u9lizing this so`ware to work with clients from other states, now they can use it to assist in limi9ng interac9ons. Other strategies employed during these 9mes include prac9cing social distancing by reducing the number of workers to jobsites or at least specific areas, avoiding box stores like Home Depot or Lowes and coordina9ng phone sales and deliveries instead, educa9on of their staff as informa9on is made available and encouraging good hygiene prac9ces as always. As always, Intellichoice’s goal is to keep their clients, construc9on partners and staff safe and healthy. Intellichoice Builders are constantly taking on new clients – Please contact them for your next project:

The last two years have been difficult for the local community. Just as parts of Bay and Gulf coun9es were star9ng to recover from the devasta9on hurricane Michael here comes 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic which is further devasta9ng our community. Intellichoice Builders and their staff have ins9tuted numerous addi9onal safety procedures and are a^emp9ng to con9nue working within the community as long as safely possible. They know how important it is for people that have been displaced from

Intellichoice Builders, LLC 1818 Michigan Ave. Panama City, FL 32405 (850) 427-2727 Intellichoicebuilders.com