What are the components required for WFH to be successful?
To run your company from remote suddenly while you were at the office or on-site most of the times is not an easy job. Covid-19 has given a dramatic shift in the work environment as most of the industries are locked down and are uncertain how long they are going to be working from home.
To strive in these dire times, we’ve put together a list of things that we used to make our WFH environment successful. Not to mention that we have also helped several of our clients move to this new work environment by leveraging our current software platform In4Suite® ERP as the base platform.
The Core ERP Platform Rollout
- In4Suite® ERP– Since In4Suite® captures all critical business flows for a Real Estate Developer or Construction firm, companies can leverage its essential functionalities like User Activity Tracking giving the top management a good overview of all daily user activity in the organization. This report can be automatically sent by email to all senior management at the end of the day.
*One can explore other functionalities available in In4Suite® here, that enable remote working.
The Infrastructure Components
- Hardware – We made sure that all our employees had a desktop or a laptop available at home with the necessary software installed to facilitate collaboration and communication. Where ever possible, cameras are provided for people with whom video conferencing was an essential part of our daily functioning.
- Collaborative Software– We decided to use Microsoft Teams as our core collaboration platform, primarily because it is tightly integrated with so
many of the daily tools that we use – e.g. MS Excel, Planning, Visual Studio, etc. Teams also provides a great way to communicate and collaborate with Video Calls, Sharing Screens, Messages, Documents, Project Plans etc. all built
into one framework. It is making our day to day communications simpler.
- In4Suite® ERP for our clients who are Real Estate and Construction companies – the core platform facilitates Sales Force Management, Leads Management, Bookings, Collections, Delivery Management, Purchase Planning and management
etc. What is most important is that it gets the customers and vendors all on one platform using Portals and Mobile apps so that Billing/Invoicing, Payments, Work Updates,
etc. can all move online through the internet.
- Connectivity – Ensuring that everyone has a viable internet connection at home is critical to the success of a WFH strategy to operate. We have some employees that were not ready with a landline connection but have managed to use their phones as a hotspot and work off their phones. While this is not ideal, it still works
- Security – We have always encouraged the use of a Firewall to ensure that your network is secure and well protected. While our core product platforms are all secure and work from a hosted service, our key product development (our core IP) has to be protected at all costs and sits behind a firewall which can only be accessed via a VPN connection. Our preferred solution here is a Checkpoint Firewall that has served us well for many years.
- WhatsApp & Franz – While we all use the core collaboration platform Microsoft Teams, it is incredibly convenient to work with WhatsApp. Franz is a desktop application that allows for all messaging platforms to be integrated under one roof, and we have been using that on the desktop to use WhatsApp to chat from our laptops or desktops.
- A company-wide WhatsApp Group – It is critical that the leadership team must communicate what is happening with the company from their point of view on this channel. A company-wide group of communication should be created so that they can reach out to each person directly and instantly if required. A company-wide WhatsApp group is beneficial and should be moderated to ensure the sanctity of the communication channel. The leadership should selectively use it to communicate critical decisions or key activities undertaken that would impact all employees and needs to be informed immediately.
While these are bare minimum requirements, we have made use of to make our remote life successful. It can be hard not to see your employees face-to-face, but real businesses strive when they take the right strategic decisions and innovate when they are in crisis.
