CIOopinion
“
THOSE WHO
LOOK AHEAD TO
HOW THEY CAN
THRIVE IN THE
‘NEW NORMAL’
WORKING
LANDSCAPE
STAND THE
BEST CHANCE
OF REMAINING
SUCCESSFUL
THROUGH THESE
TURBULENT
TIMES.
streaming TV services or doing schoolwork
online) and others may not have access to
home Wi-Fi at all.
To address this at Freshworks, we issued all
our India-based staff with Mi-Fi dongles
at the beginning of the crisis to ensure
everyone could work from home without any
access issues. CIOs can also set up Virtual
Desktop Infrastructures (VDIs) with their
cloud provider to give their employees robust
IT infrastructure that can cope with high
demand on services.
4. More self-service required
IT support teams are under unprecedented
pressure with so much of the expectation of
seamless adaptation to working from home
falling on their shoulders. Service tickets
have significantly increased and in many
instances, IT teams are stretched to the
limit of their resources. It is the responsibility
of business leaders, specifically CIOs, to
relieve this burden and find ways to ensure
employees are more self-sufficient.
CIOs and IT teams should develop
knowledge-based articles and videos that
educate staff on how to troubleshoot issues
themselves. If done effectively, employees
will be able to refer to these as guidelines
so they are not having to rely on IT service
teams so heavily.
5. Ensuring Business Continuity
Remote working policies have proven
essential to maintaining at least some form
of continuity during the pandemic and
companies cannot afford to overlook the
massive paradigm shift that has occurred in
Business Continuity overall.
Even in normal circumstances, best practice
dictates updating Business Continuity plans
on an ongoing basis. However, now is the
time to thoroughly scrutinise existing plans.
This will vary from company to company,
but there are plenty of imperatives that
apply across the board. Any weakness in
technology strategy will quickly show and
it is down to the CIOs to address this and
ensure they are better prepared for events
occurring in the future on a similar scale.
These are exceptionally trying times for the
CIO of any organisation and those who
are equipped to flex quickly and adapt to
deal with the changing environment will
ultimately be those that can get through
this difficult period and continue to operate
as normally as possible. The advice laid
out here is simple to follow but integral to
the Business Continuity of any company.
All organisations will be facing unique
problems of their own, but those who look
ahead to how they can thrive in the ‘new
normal’ working landscape stand the best
chance of remaining successful through
these turbulent times. •
48 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com