Coronavirus, or COVID-19 has created challenging, uncertain and ever changing times for businesses everywhere. Success, or even now survival, is down to how your business, or even your entire workforce, reacts to change, how you learn from it and most importantly how you adapt. Don’t focus on what you can’t change; try to see the positive in every situation and work with that.

Here we’ve created a guide to both working at home as a remote worker – what things to avoid and how to stay focussed, and as a business how to get the best from remote working and home workers.

 

Business As Usual For Us

Professionally, it’s business as usual and, of course, we’re extremely busy advising businesses about how to get the best from remote working and remote workers. SDWAN Solutions was built to embrace remote working. We have offices, lab environments and staff across 3 countries, 5 cities and use the Cloud and Cloud hosted applications extensively. For some of our customers, prospects and colleagues however, it’s not so seamless, and perhaps we can help you get as close to a normal working environment as possible.

Personally, I’m grabbing this free time with both hands – I’ve started taking Dutch lessons via Skype, I’ve started a 3-week detox and I’ve dusted off the violin – I will master twinkle twinkle little star.

Face to Face meetings and industry events are being cancelled, which does free up a bit more time, but could also mean that certain projects may fall behind schedule. This is where you have control over where you will be when things get back to normal.

But as an award-winning business for whom remote working is the norm and with unique SD-WAN technology that vastly improves network connectivity for office and home workers, here’s our guide – professional and personal – to remote working.

Guide For Remote Workers – Keep your routine and keep focussed!

  • Keep to your routine – Get up, get dressed and get ready to start at your normal time (use the extra time you have not commuting on yourself)
  • Have coffee breaks, call up colleagues for a chat, leave your “desk” for 5 min
  • Take a lunch break, even if it’s just eating in the kitchen, away from your laptop
  • Finish at your normal time

Working at home does have distractions and it can be difficult to stay focussed (I renovated my entire house the first time I “worked” from home). This is my list of what you can do to achieve better ways of working

  • Prioritise the most important tasks and work down the list.
  • Open yourself to new ideas,
  • listen to experts in their fields,
  • explore new technologies and better ways of working.

It’s difficult to adjust to old habits, but a simple change in how you do things could make all the difference to your business, to your department, to your staff, to your family and to you.

 

A CEOs, CTOs. CIOs IT Directors or IT managers Guide For Remote Working – Keep your business operational and productive

You may currently be faced with what seems like an impossible situation or workload and need to find solutions for your business that enable remote working, and find them quickly – we can help you with the following:

1. Your current VPN solution is hampering home working. This one is close to home for me. My daughter works for a well know company in the financial sector. She has worked from home many times with no problems accessing corporate systems over VPN. But this has changed. Their corporate VPN can no longer handle the amount of sessions required for everyone to work remotely. The result is that only key workers are allowed to WFH and access the VPN while other staff are required to work from the office. At what point does a staff member’s well-being take precedence over the requirement for the company to stay operational? – Solution: SDWAN Solutions, in partnership with a global technology company can offer, demonstrate, run a POC and install a complete Perimeter-As-A-Service remote access solution, for between 50 – 100 000 users, within 3 – 7 days.

The solution is available in web-based browser or client app versions and can be rolled out to all company devices and BYOD remotely. It provides access to local as well as DC and cloud hosted applications and systems, The remote access solution includes full audit and individual policy access rules administered from a central location. Cost ranges from £40 – £150 per user per annum and is suitable for local and global requirements. Please contact our team for more information or to arrange an online demo – info@sdwansolutions.co.uk

2. Unsuitable home connectivity slowing down remote working capabilities – As more and more people start consuming broadband while WFH, school children logging on all day, not to mention Netflix downloads and streaming, contended home broadband services will be stretched to the limit, with buffering and timeouts becoming common place. Solution: Existing SD-WAN customers are able to request entry level SD-WAN devices for their key staff, and bolster existing home connections with 4G shared data bundle SIMs thereby extending the benefits of SD-WAN and enhanced connectivity instantly to the home, with a zero touch deployment model. Companies that have not yet embraced SD-WAN technology should start investigation and begin steps to future proof their business, while gaining all the business benefits that a flexible and tailored SD-WAN solution can deliver. Our SD-WAN divisional manager, Nicola Hunter would love to have an initial chat with you. You can email Nicola here: Nicola.hunter@sdwansolutions.co.uk

3. I need to move to SD-WAN quickly to enable remote working but can’t meet with suppliers – Policies are being put in place to cancel all travel and face to face meetings. If you are currently starting an SD-WAN investigation or now realise that a tailored SD-WAN solution can help your company adapt changing circumstances, there’s no need to delay or halt the process. Solution: SDWAN ASSIST is the world’s only 100% online complete SD-WAN solution design and scoping tool. Complete the ASSIST questionnaire, wherever you are, and within 7 days:

  • We align the best-fit SD-WAN vendor according to your exact requirements,
  • We specify diverse connectivity and technologies per site,
  • We design your tailored SD-WAN solution & offer installation and management options
  • We generate a detailed proposal, solution design and quotation for you

We know about remote working! So much so that we can remotely discuss the initial design and concepts with you, arrange a free of charge Proof of Concept and even implement a zero touch deployment solution for you – 100% online / remote if required!

Partnering with SDWAN Solutions means that you don’t have to be an expert in multi-vendor emerging technologies, you don’t have to delay your project and you don’t have to try to meet with dozens of suppliers – We do all the hard & time-consuming work for you. As the trusted experts in all things SD-WAN and SD-WAN subject matter experts (the only ones in the UK) you are guaranteed that the designed solution is right for you.

Our team would love to chat with you about SDWAN ASSIST – Click here to send us an email. You really can have your perfect SD-WAN solution designed for you, without getting out of bed!

So why use SDWAN Solutions? We only work with world-class SD-WAN vendors. We’ve been voted in the top ten of UK SD-WAN providers, are award-winning and are proud that our CEO and CTO are the only MEF SD-WAN subject matter experts in the whole of the UK, 2 of 3 in Europe and 2 of 12 globally. We have created FOUR world-first, tech-giant-beating innovations (SDWAN CLOUDSDWAN ASSIST [channel]SDWAN ASSIST [direct] and the SDWANofTHINGS – the first ever truly tailored, modular SD-WAN solution.

If you’d like to hear more about how SD-WAN can help with your critical business continuation email info@sdwansolutions.co.uk

 

Anthony Senter

Anthony Senter

CEO, SDWAN Solutions

Anthony is the CEO and founder of SDWAN Solutions Ltd, and a director of SDWAN Solutions SRL. Anthony has over 22 years network industry experience gained from working for most of the global Tier 1 carriers. He was an early advocate of SDWAN technology and is one of the leading authorities in SD-WAN and one of only 12 SD-WAN Subject Matter Experts, globally

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