The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in remote work. Companies without remote access capabilities have adapted and implemented new solutions, while organizations with existing solutions have been forced to evaluate new capacity requirements and scale their solutions accordingly. You may be surprised to learn that your existing Microsoft assets include functionalities for remote access, and you can get rid of redundant or more costly solutions.
Microsoft has placed significant focus in the areas of security, video and audio conferencing, virtual desktop, and cloud computing. Many of these Microsoft assets, which are likely already in your organization, are gaining additional functionality for your remote workforce.
Leveraging Microsoft assets to the fullest starts with knowing what your organization has purchased, and to what it is entitled. This goes beyond Microsoft assets alone and a full inventory of software, services, and features within your environment should be performed sooner rather than later.
Once your organization understands what it is entitled to within your existing environment, you must then determine situational awareness for future planning and sustainability.
Secure the Enviroment
If your workforce is now remote, has your organizational data gone remote as well? Now that most companies have been required to provide users with remote access, either through Virtual Desktop infrastructure, cloud-based applications or internet portals, the attack surface for exploitation by hackers has never been larger. This puts companies at greater risk of a security breach. Knowing this, Microsoft has invested billions of dollars to protect their product offerings and combat cyber criminals.
Failing to protect data internally may result in proprietary data inadvertently shared with a client, or competitor, or being lost entirely. In healthcare and financial services, it can result in a loss of personal identifiable data, or banking information, which carry hefty fines from regulatory bodies, as you may already know.
Collaboration and Communication with Office
Another challenge of a remote workforce is the ability to maintain and manage devices, both corporate-owned and user-owned.
Securing and managing a remote work environment is important but ensuring users can communicate and collaborate on work that was previously performed in the office is one of, if not the biggest, challenges.
External communication is one of the primary reasons that Microsoft is still considered the industry leader for collaboration software with many companies utilizing the Microsoft Office suite.
A frequently overlooked solution included in your Microsoft 365 subscription is Microsoft Teams which provides instant messaging, document collaboration and audio/video teleconferencing. Furthermore, Microsoft Teams is integrated with and supported by other Microsoft products.
Leveraging Microsoft service offerings can be optimized beyond the traditional use of Office products and Operating Systems, to provide a secure, managed, agile, and accessible environment for users regardless of their location.
Now is the time to evaluate the Microsoft tools you may already have at your fingertips and leverage the built-in remote work security features and capabilities. Want to know more? Give us a call now.
