A STEP AHEAD

Richard Botley, senior content manager at Mimecast discusses the measures the company undertook in the face of the challenges presented by Covid-19

How has the company managed operational challenges dues to Covid19? Was work from home implemented?

In early March, we stopped all international business travel and enacted a global working from home policy. Our early decision was led by an abundance of caution and we were thankfully already setup with our own cloud-first strategy for IT and security for years. This was both in preparation for an emergency as well as for the daily support of our highly mobile and global staff, including some members that permanently work from home.

What have been some of the challenges that you have overcome in ensuring the transition?

After ensuring safety of our teams, the next challenge was to keep business running effectively to look after our customers and channel partners. Based on initial customer feedback, we saw an opportunity to help organisations who were struggling to rapidly transition to a secure WFH environment.

Our teams quickly worked together to launch a website focused on helping security leaders better secure and protect their employees while enabling a mobile workforce. This site is updated regularly to provide insights into new threats, to help organisations through this challenging time.

What are some of the collaboration tools you have adopted during the phase as a team?

Due to the global nature of our business, Mimecast employees already had a strong mix of online collaboration tools such as secure email, Slack and video conferencing and webinar options. Richard Botley Senior Content Manager, Mimecast

However, here in the Middle East we know that physical events and faceto-face meetings are culturally important, often more so than many other geographies. The UAE for example, traditionally has only around 10% of people working regularly from home. This shift remains a challenge but we’re also deeply invested in experimenting with new virtual events to keep us close and engaged with our communities

Discuss some of the digital engagements you have executed/planned with partners / end customers?

We’ve seen significant increases in coronavirus-related spam and impersonation attack campaigns, which are exploiting the vulnerability of users working at home. Criminals are taking advantage of the desire for information about the coronavirus pandemic to entice users to click on unsafe links. We know education and support is critical in these times, so we’ve been running weekly threat intelligence webinar briefings to arm our customers with the right knowledge to defend against these threats.

Is there a lot of relearning and reskilling expected from employees?

Many employees who have never worked from home before will certainly need to adapt their workstyle, especially if juggling personal demands from family and the distractive mental strain of the pandemic itself.

Keeping safe and secure online at home also requires new skills. Mimecast has detected a rise in unsafe clicks, suggesting that there’s an urgent need to refresh awareness training for employees and to help ensure they have a secure working environment.

How are specific job functions like logistics/ after sales support that is part of technology business impacted?

Customer support has easily transferred over to secure video conferencing. We obviously love to meet up face-to-face, but there are some circumstances where we’ve found that virtual is better because we spend even more time with customers, by removing travel time and office distractions.

What would you want to tell your partners and customers about overcoming the challenges presented during the current COVID’19 crisis?

Consider how to build resilience in everything you do – from community to cash flow, IT security to mental health, family to friendships, a prepared-for-anything mindset can only help guide you through this global crisis.