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Collaboration is the name of the game Interview with George Ralph
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he sudden and forced shift to remote working has served as an impetus for firms to transform their operations. Primarily, it has enabled the rise of more collaborative working methods, some of which will hopefully be embedded in future ways of working. “Keeping staff engaged is the main challenge firms are facing,” George Ralph, managing director at RFA explains. In terms of communication and collaboration, video calling via systems like Microsoft Teams and Zoom has increased. The face to face contact such tools provide is important. “It really does help businesses stay connected… With tools like Microsoft Teams in place, I don’t think that communication and collaboration have to be compromised, just because everyone is working remotely. “There are many ways to communicate, whether it is via voice call, video call or instant BUSINESS CONTINUITY IN FOCUS | Jun 2020
message and working on the same centralised projects and files has never been easier than with SharePoint and OneDrive,” Ralph delineates. He notes that in terms of technology, RFA has not experienced a significant surge in support calls, which shows the firm’s systems are working as well as they always did. Although all RFA clients were already making use of cloud technologies and automation in some form, some were still affected from a technology stack perspective. “Most of our clients already had the fundamental infrastructure in place to accommodate this new way of working. With some additional resources, or more Citrix servers and with additional capacity for serving up more sessions, they have been able to continue largely as before. RFA’s own use of automation and orchestration made this process slick and smooth,” Ralph notes. www.hedgeweek.com | 15
