Puneet has over a decade of experience in technology domain, working with companies such as BMW, Yash Raj Films, and Gulf Oil, mainly in ITeS, Healthcare, BFSI, Manufacturing, Media & Entertainment, Public Sector, and Tourism & Hospitality verticals.

So far, we had been talking about the growing importance of technology in the business sphere and how the future will be dominated by the new age technologies. Who would have thought that the time to realize the same would come sooner than anticipated!

Covid-19, the pandemic which has brought the entire world to a standstill, has made us realize the importance of technologies in our lives. While there are many businesses and supply chains which have got affected due to the pandemic, the businesses which could embrace the digital transformation are the ones that are able to survive at this critical moment.

In order to cut the spread of the Covid-19, the countries have opted the route of complete lockdown, which means offices are shut and no one is allowed to travel from one point to another. Now, what about the businesses? How are they running? The answer is `work from home'. Yes, homes have turned into offices as people are doing all of their work from home.

How Is Work-From-Home Working-Out?
• Virtual Desktop Solutions: This is enabling employees to work remotely by using virtual desktop solutions on a company-controlled system with all corporate data, apps, security, and antivirus. These solutions let employers and employees securely access their Line of Business data and apps while operating out of home laptops and wifi.

Data privacy has always been a concern, and it becomes more when employees move out of a confined place

• Using Company Registered Laptops: Multiple organizations are mandating access to some internal apps and data only through a laptop that is registered with the company. This is a hybrid between BYOD and cloud security, its enabled by a service called Microsoft Intune. Features like multi-factor authentication and remote wipe of corporate apps & data, which adds an additional security layer.

• Use of Collaborative Tools: While everyone is working from home with no in-person meetings, it has be-come imperative to connect as much as possible. For the safe and secure collaboration between the teams, organizations are investing in collaborative tools such as Teams, Zoom, and Slack. These tools enable people to connect over chats, audio calls, and video conferences on any device like laptops, mobile, ipad and others. These tools are being used by the global teams and gig economy for a very good amount of time now, and hence they are well tested and can be adopted with trust. Microsoft has also made their tool Teams free for all of its users globally for six months to support them work remotely. It must be noted that these solutions aren't just for the IT industry, but can also be used by other industries such as Manufacturing, Media & Entertainment, Education, Public and other sectors.

Challenges Of Work From Home
There are many organizations which are not used to the system of work from home. While it is allowing many of us to continue adding momentum to our businesses, it does come with its own struggles and challenges. The two top most challenges include:

• Ensuring Appropriate Level of Productivity: This remains the biggest constraint of remote work. Since employers cannot physically see their employees working, their productivity is highly dubious. The solution to this is to move from fixed working hours to more of deliverables-based tracking of work. In fact, some of the companies are already adopting it. This is not a very known phenomenon in India; however, it is a very well-known and adopted practice in the West. In the period of lockdown, when everyone is baffled about the future, the only solution is to infuse a bit of fluidity to businesses.

• Data Security: This challenge is more pertinent to the financial and software business where data is the soul. Data privacy has always been a concern, and it becomes more when employees move out of a confined place. Taking data outside the offices is challenging employers to keep it safe despite the place of work. Organizations are trying to find-out ways to strengthen the security of their data. Using company registered laptops/desktops is one such way.

The human civilization is in a difficult phase, and we can ace it only by staying home and staying positive. Panic has never helped, and it will not help in this situation either. As a team, keep a check on your team mates, be in regular touch for work and non-work-related activities, and most importantly, keep your morale high and spread it amongst everywhere around you. The humanity can ace the Covid-19!