Business Preparation for the Coronavirus

By now everyone has heard about the Coronavirus.  It is rapidly spreading around the world.  Governments in an effort to slow the spread of the virus have instituted travel bans and whole cities in China are in quarantine.  Businesses in the US are just starting to feel the consequences of having the Chinese parts of their supply chain disrupted by government commerce shutdowns.  So far, the direct impact of Coronavirus infection in the US has been minimal, but the supply side disruptions and potential for the spread of the virus in the US are real.

What can a business do now to be prepared to continue operations when the Coronavirus finally strikes the US mainland?  The simple answer is to setup and/or expand the ability for people to work from home.  It takes time and preparation to enable people to work remotely, especially for an extended period of time.

Here are some of the things that need to be considered for staff members working remotely:

• How are the phones going to get answered?  Does the phone system have the ability to call forward to peoples home or cell numbers?
• How will the staff communicate with clients and vendors?
• How will the staff member access e-mail?
• How will the staff collaborate during the day?
• What systems will the staff need to access to do their jobs?
• If a staff member needs to print, where is it going to print?
• If a staff member needs to scan a document, is there a way to get scanned document to the right place on the business network?

At Beringer Technology we have a number of staff members that work remotely away from the primary business location.  We’ve worked through the issues above to seamlessly integrate remote workers onto the Beringer team.  Clients and vendors have no idea where the staff members are located.  Our ability to support remote workers came from careful planning, and learning from the experience of supporting remote workers.

There is no one right way to setup and support remote staff members as the solution for a business will be based on their business processes, phone systems, IT infrastructure, security requirements and the mix of cloud and premise based systems.

Contact Beringer Technology Group today so we can help you prepare your workforce for remote working.

Beringer Technology Group, a leading Microsoft Gold Certified Partner specializing in Microsoft Dynamics 365 and CRM for Distribution. We also provide expert Managed IT Services, Backup and Disaster Recovery, Cloud Based Computing and Unified Communication Solutions.