Category Archives: Cloud Storage
How to Take Your Work Offline in Case of an Emergency – WIRED
Many of us have been working from home for months nowlong enough that youve probably suffered at least one internet outage, or had to call your internet service provider to find out whats wrong with your connection. ISP outages arent the only thing to worry about when working remotely: Blackouts, more common in warm temperatures, and even spilled coffee can strike without warning and leave you without your precious Wi-Fi.
While you can't fully protect yourself from any of these, you can at least put in the prep work to survive it, or even work through it. You may be thinking of your home office hardware, and that's fine, but you should also consider the software you use. Many of your most often-used programs will happily carry on working offline without any tweaking. Here's how to make sure theyre set up to keep you going.
Gmail
Gmail, surprisingly, works fairly well offline. It can't actually send and receive emails without an internet connection, but it will let you search through old messages and compose new ones (which can then be sent as soon as connectivity returns).
In your web browser, click the cog icon (on the right), then Settings and Offlinecheck the box marked Enable offline mail, and choose how many days of messages you want to sync to your computer (7, 30 or 90).
Google Drive
In offline mode, Google Drive lets you create, view and edit Docs, Sheets and Slides, with changes synced back to the cloud when an internet connection returns.
You need to put in some preparation first though. On Google Drive on the web, click the cog icon (top right), then choose Settings and Generalmake sure the Offline box is ticked, and Drive will start syncing files to the local computer.
Google doesn't make it clear exactly how many files get synced, but in our experience it's at least a month's worth, starting with the most recent. To make absolutely sure a specific file is available without an internet connection, right-click on it and turn the Available offline toggle switch on. Also, if you find you're running out of space in Gmail, we have some tips to help trim back to the stuff you really need.
iCloud
Apple's iCloud platform will move older, less frequently used files off your Mac if you start running out of space on your computer, keeping copies in the cloud and downloading them as and when you need them. If you want to make sure this offloading doesn't happen, open System Preferences, then click Apple ID and iCloud, and untick the box that's marked Optimize Mac Storage.
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How to Take Your Work Offline in Case of an Emergency - WIRED
Data protection best practice more important than ever in cloud environment – ITWeb
Johan Scheepers, country head at Commvault South Africa.
More data than ever before is being generated and is in circulation. But amid the sudden move to remote work, many organisations may be losing control of enterprise data, and neglecting data backup and protection.
This is according to Johan Scheepers, country head for South Africa at Commvault, who was addressing a Commvault webinar presented in partnership with ITWeb today.
Scheepers noted that the world is now creating more data than ever before, but knows less about it than in years past.
IDC predicts that 175 Zettabytes (ZB) of data will be generated annually by 2025, which exceeds forecasts made as recently as two years ago. But around 55% of this is dark data we have no access to and dont know about. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the move to remote work, the use of multi-cloud environments and Software-as-a-Service adoption, complicating data management.
A poll of the webinar participants revealed that 67% of participants companies already had a multi-cloud strategy in place, and 57% said the situation was becoming more complicated for IT professionals to manage. This follows global trends, which show 84% of enterprises already have a multi-cloud strategy, 66% of IT executives believe the environment is more complex than it was two years ago, and 75% believe most enterprise data will be created and processed outside of traditional data centres by 2025.
Organisations need to sharpen their data security policies and use encryption as a minimum when putting sensitive data in cloud storage.
Johan Scheepers
Scheepers said this new working environment, along with growing cyber risk, meant that data protection had to be stepped up.
There are inherent risks and threats within the cloud. Organisations need to sharpen their data security policies and use encryption as a minimum when putting sensitive data in cloud storage. But they must also focus on the data lifecycle across the movement and retention of data; on compliance; and, importantly, on responsibilities relating to data in the cloud.
With cloud service providers, there is usually a shared responsibility model for issues such as data loss, admin errors and loss of service. But data loss due to malicious users, ransomware and malware, deactivated accounts and deletion of long term data are usually the customers responsibility. So cloud native tools may not be enough, he said.
They do not always cover employees leaving the company, longer term retention, accessing data beyond the SaaS subscription, recovery at scale or granularity, recovery from corruption, malware or ransomware, or flexibility to extend recovery time and recovery point objectives.
He noted that it was important to study the fine print around the burden of management and recovery of data in the cloud, as well as to assess risk and develop solid policies.
Organisations need to apply traditional on-premise data protection best practice to data in the cloud too, he said. Remote working, SaaS and multi cloud policies should cover protection, availability, accessibility, recoverability, management, security and compliance. They need to move from reactive to proactive management and protection, because they are responsible for data on-premise and in the cloud, and anywhere else it resides.
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Data protection best practice more important than ever in cloud environment - ITWeb
E-Discovery Preservation: What to Consider as Offices Open Back Up from COVID-19 – JD Supra
Governments are easing their shelter-in-place orders and companies are beginning to determine what it means to open their spaces back up and let their employees come back in to the office. But, what does this mean from an e-discovery perspective?
Lets rewind a bit. In mid-March, companies were given little time to prepare to shut down their offices. In many cases, employees were given short notice to pack up what they needed to work from home and probably began using whatever devices they had. So, immediately, employees began to use their cell phones instead of their office phones. Some began to use their personal computers instead of, or in addition to, their office computers. And what about those thumb drives that were laying about the house? Yes, they started to use those too.
So what? Well, business did not completely shut down over the past few months and the documents employees created, accessed, and used during this time may become discoverable in later litigation. Like no time before, employees used their personal devices to do company business, and those personal devices will likely be discoverable in litigation. This will inevitably raise questions about whether those devices are in the custody, control or possession of the company, especially for employees that have departed the company. But, that is a fact determination based on the particular circumstances and roles of the employees, and a topic completely of its own.
Instead, lets consider what will need to be preserved and possibly collected in the event of future litigation. The best way to determine what needs to be preserved and collected is to ask the employees. Did they use personal laptops for work business? And if so, is there data saved on those laptops related to the work business? Whether the laptop and its contents need to be preserved and collected depends on the answers. In many cases, employees use their personal laptops as merely a portal to access on-line work accounts. If that is the case, and there are no documents on the personal computer, preservation and collection are likely not necessary. But, the questions need to be asked.
The same can be said about any external hard drives or cloud storage. The best way to determine what needs to be preserved and collected is to ask employees where they stored documents while they were working from home, and if they used any external hard drives, personal cloud drives, or any other storage media not maintained by, or even known to, the company.
Cell phones will be the treasure trove of potentially relevant data. Obviously, we expect to see an increase in relevant texts. If people have been sheltering in place, location data will likely be uninteresting. But, call history could be a valuable source of information like never before. When people worked in the office, cell phone use was hit and miss. Sometimes, people used their office phone and sometimes people used their cell phones. So, call logs were sometimes useful, but not essential, and they didnt show a complete picture. Now, with people relying almost exclusively on their cell phones, every phone call in or out has been logged. Who made each call and how long it lasted is maintained for every call. This will likely be a valuable source of information that has been only moderately valuable before.
And what about the technologies whose use exploded during this time? Thats right, what about your Zoom meetings, Google Meets, and Microsoft Teams video calls? Each one of those applications has the ability to record the meeting. Have any company meetings been recorded? If so, where are the copies? Who has them, and who is responsible for maintaining them? It is better to ask these questions now, while it is fresh on everyones mind, and so it doesnt sneak up on you later.
Though there are a lot of considerations going on now, preservation of potentially relevant documents is not high on the list. But, it should be. The easiest solution is to make this part of the process to re-enter the workplace. Companies should instruct their employees that as they close down their work-from-home office spaces, employees should move all of their work documents back to computers maintained by the company. Not only will this facilitate the use of these documents in the day-to-day business, but this will help the company keep track of its documents should there be legal issues down the road: employment, contract, trade secrets, etc. And, as for cell phones, they are still a valuable source of electronic discovery just more so now.
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E-Discovery Preservation: What to Consider as Offices Open Back Up from COVID-19 - JD Supra
Dell’s OneFS for Google Cloud. What do the competitors think? – Blocks and Files
Last week, Dell Technologies announced Isilon scale-out filers in Google Cloud, which it has branded as OneFS for Google Cloud.
OneFS for Google Cloud is not a cloud-native offering. Netapps Azure NetApp Files, with ONTAP arrays running in Azure data centres, is a better comparison with Isilon hardware and its OneFs software running in GCP data centres.
With its customer-dedicated hardware, OneFS for Google Cloud is akin to a managed tenant offering, as NetApps John Rollason, senior director, global revenue marketing, tweeted: not a Cloud service as such, but more a (quite fast) traditional single tenant managed service.
Qumulo also offers its scale-out filesystem on Google Cloud Platform and as such can be considered a competitor for OneFS.
We asked Qumulo product director Molly Presley for her take on the Dells new service.
Blocks & Files: Dell has announced OneFS for Google Cloud.Does Qumulo have general views on this?
Molly Presley: Dell announced this relationship two years ago (2018) at EMCWorld as an early access program. They now are saying it is available in three countries. Essentially it is the same architecture that Isilon appliances have but co-located in the GCP data centers.
Blocks & Files: What do you see as the OneFS for Google Cloud advantages and disadvantages?
Molly Presley: The advantage is proximity to the cloud and a new more cloud-like consumption model. The fact that it took two years from the original announcement to get to this point would make one question how much adoption they have or why it has taken this long.
A disadvantage is that it appears this is simply Isilon appliances co-located or hosted in the GCP (Google Cloud Platform) data centers. Each customer is assigned their own hardware cluster. So this is similar to the NetApp/Azure relationship. They do not get the advantage of the economics, scale or speed of the massive GCP cloud architecture. And, customers will still suffer from the same architectural limitations inherent in Isilons file system (endless tree walks to do tiering jobs, no real time data visibility, inefficient small file storage).
Blocks & Files: An ESG study reported 200GB/sec aggregate read throughput and 121GB/sec aggregate write throughput for OneFS for Google Cloud. What do you think of these performance numbers [We identified Vendor X in the ESG document as NetApp and its Cloud Volumes for GCP. This provides cloud-native file services, such as NFS and CIFS, in GCP.]
Molly Presley: I asked our data scientist team to comment about the performance tests to see what kind of apples-to-apples we can provide for a Qumulo running cloud natively vs. the architecture Isilon tested.
Related to the performance paper from ESG.It seems ESGs methodology to compare a 2PB all-flash array to a small configuration of a NAS (no matter who Vendor X is) is flawed. I dont understand how they would see that as a relevant comparison for a benchmark or why it would be included in an otherwise quite solid write up. I also do not know who vendor x is.
However, creating a Qumulo configuration similar to the one benchmarked by ESG for Isilon, we would produce the following performance; 450GB/sec read throughput and 330GB/sec write throughput.
This is a good apples-to-apples comparison.
Isilon users get a single environment spanning on-premises deployments and Google Cloud with GCP compute able to process OneFS for Google Cloud-held data. Thats good news for those Isilon customers who want to burst compute to the public cloud. It also provides a potential platform for Isilon disaster recovery in Google Cloud.
Blocks & Files expects Dell EMC to add Power-style branding to Isilon, following the announcement of PowerStore as a unifying SC, XtremIO. Unity and VNX brand. Perhaps PowerScale is on the list.
We also expect OneFS to develop further to provide a better fit to the needs of a hybridising cloud and containerising enterprise IT environment. A porting of the software to Google Cloud or another public cloud would be in line with this.
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Dell's OneFS for Google Cloud. What do the competitors think? - Blocks and Files
69% off and free cloud storage makes this VPN deal one of the best around right now – TechRadar India
It's little surprise that VPN sales have been through the roof over the last few months. With so many of us stuck at home working (and trying to stay entertained), it's as important as ever to stay secure online.
Thankfully, there are no shortage of fabulous VPN deals around to help make online security as painless as possible on your bank balance. One of our very favorite services - IPVanish - has just unleashed a doozy of a discount.
Sign up to IPVanish now, and you'll get two years of its outstanding VPN protection and 250GB of secure cloud storage for the equivalent of only $3.70 per month.
When it comes to VPN goodness, we rank IPVanish extremely highly - the provider (deep breath...) has 24/7 customer support, unblocks Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, keeps no traffic logs, allows unlimited bandwidth, features an excellent Windows kill switch, and lets you connect up to 10 devices simultaneously. It really is one of the very best around.
Meanwhile, the free SugarSync cloud storage add-on gets you a full 250GB of secure data storage. This means that all your photos, videos and personal documents (whatever you choose to store) will remain safeguarded from outsiders. So for the next 24 months your VPN and storage needs are completely covered - but only as long as you sign up before the offer expires on May 26.
Still unsure if this is the deal for you? Scroll down to see this offer in full, or why not also check out our best VPN deals guide for all of the very best offers on cyber privacy.
As well as unblocking Netflix (hello streaming!) and being one of the best value for money VPNs, it also has a 30-day money-back guarantee and servers in over 75 countries.
Plus, it boasts incredible download speeds so you don't need to worry about the VPN slowing down your device, and it's got plenty of powerful, configurable apps.So whether privacy, streaming or cost is your reason for getting a VPN, IPVanish ticks all the boxes.
Still undecided? Check out our IPVanish review.
Balance of options and ease of use
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69% off and free cloud storage makes this VPN deal one of the best around right now - TechRadar India
GoodFirms Survey: Around 92.13% People Believe Cloud Storage have Influenced their Data Habits – WhaTech
GoodFirms from this current research unveils the users cloud storage management habits, trends and stats.
In this highly advanced world, businesses from every industry and individuals are investing as well as already have started using cloud storage services. It helps to reduce the risks of damage and loss of the data. Today, you can find the Top Cloud Computing Companies providing services, including servers, storage, databases, networking, analytics, and much more.
According to the recent report by GoodFirms research on Usage & Trends of Personal Cloud Storage unveiled that almost 92.13% of people think cloud storage has influenced them. And about 54.62% of them use at least three different cloud services that are Popular Cloud Services & Platforms, Personal Data Storage & Management, and Primary Storage & Backup.
The research presents how people use cloud storage - platforms, pricing, uses, concerns, and trusted services. For more profound stats and insights, read the complete article and implement it to take your business to the next level.
GoodFirms surveyed about 600+ people to obtain detailed information about the current usage of cloud storage.
The study was performed among the participants from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Australia, Ukraine, Belarus, Uruguay, Romania, Singapore, and other countries. The people from different ages helped to garner were: 6.94% of Generation Z (18-24), 69.44% of Millenials (25-39), 22.22% of Gen X (40-59), and 0.93% of Baby Boomers (60+).
The participants were asked multiple questions to acquire all the stats and detailed information regarding cloud services. They were asked - what cloud service they use, how they store and manage the office and personal data, what they utilized cloud storage for, which cloud services they trust and why, as well as they were asked about their experiences with cloud storage.
GoodFirms, based in the heart of Washington DC, is a leading and renowned B2B research, ratings, and reviews platform. It assists the service seekers to get in contact with the right partners for their project needs. Thus to ensure this, GoodFirms evaluates each firm with numerous research methodologies. It includes three main key factors that are Quality, Reliability, and Ability.
These elements are subdivided into several metrics to identify the past and present portfolio of each agency, determine their online presence, years of experience, and reviews they have received for their services. Hence, all the firms are provided a set of scores that is out of a total 60 as per the research.
Thus, considering these points, all the service providers are indexed in the catalog of top development companies, best software, and other organizations from varied sectors of fields. Recently, GoodFirms has also curated a list of Top Cloud Security Companies based on several qualitative and quantitative parameters.
Furthermore, GoodFirms supports the service providers by asking them to take part in the research process and show convincing proof of their successful work. Thus, grab an opportunity to get listed for free in the catalog of top companies as per the categories. Obtaining the position at GoodFirms among the most excellent service providers will be able to spread their wings globally, attract new prospects, and earn more revenue.
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Microsofts Azure And Dynamics 365 To Offer AI-Driven Cloud Storage And Data Analytics To FedEx Logistics For Improving Last-Mile Delivery – Appuals
Microsoft has partnered with FedEx. Together, the companies are planning to boost the capabilities of the latters logistics, tracking, and last-mile delivery. Microsofts AI-driver Azure Cloud Services, as well as Dynamics 365 collaboration and productivity platforms,are expected to improve commerce tracking for companies that rely on the logistics network of FedEx.
With a publicized intention of transforming commerce Microsoft and FedEx have agreed to collaborate. The duo is launching cloud-based inventory and supply chain management solutions. It is clear that Microsoft, with the partnership, gets a new cloud customer. Meanwhile, FedEx is attempting to enter the world of e-commerce and compete with Amazon while further improving its services.
Microsoft and FedEx have announced a multiyear partnership. The companies have agreed to collaborate in the digital or virtual commerce sector.In ajoint announcement post, FedEx and Microsoft stated that the collaboration will help transform commerce, adding that the companies aim to create opportunities for their customers through multiple joint offerings powered by Azure and Dynamics 365 that will use data and analytics solutions to reinvent the most critical aspects of the commerce experience and enable businesses to better compete in todays increasingly digital landscape.
Together, the companies should help FedEx become even more efficient and productive while handling one of the worlds largest and busiest supply-chain logistics chains. According to the press release, the partnership will help FedEx and its partners to enhance visibility into its supply chain by leveraging data to provide near-real-time analytics into shipment tracking, which will drive more precise logistics and inventory management.
Interestingly, Microsoft and FedEx already have their first product ready. It is called FedEx Surround. FedEx is confident the product will give shippers better data on where a package is as it makes its way from producer to consumer. Additionally, FedEx Surround will reportedly enable businesses to react more effectively to supply chain difficulties. The platform can reportedly provide near-real-time insights down to areas as specific as ZIP codes.
FedEx Surround incorporates data from the transportation companys extensive logistical network with Microsofts Azure cloud and data analytics solutions. Needless to add, such integration would significantly improve the access to data thats updated in real-time. Moreover, FedEx would also gain some interesting insights that should go a long way in improving the services while keeping overhead costs down. Although neither of the companies has revealed, the platform could also offer new ways FedEx could optimize deliveries and bring down the time taken from pick-up to drop-off.
Amazon and FedEx were big partners but the collaboration broke down last year. Needless to add, Amazon has been aggressively developing its own logistics and supply-chain that aims to replace or rival FedEx. Incidentally, Amazon limited the ability of third-party merchants to ship with FedEx, in a clear attempt to push more business toward its internal service.
Now FedEx has joined hands with Microsoft. The latter doesnt have any noticeable stake in e-Commerce, but the company has been trying to win customers for its cloud-based services. FedEx is certainly a large client which also opens up a new avenue for Microsoft.
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Microsofts Azure And Dynamics 365 To Offer AI-Driven Cloud Storage And Data Analytics To FedEx Logistics For Improving Last-Mile Delivery - Appuals
Best practices and need of cloud storage for protecting corporate and personal data – CRN.in
By Adrian Johnson, Director Technology at TechnoBind
The world is changing, taking its steps ahead in the world of technology. Technology has become a part of our life and it also plays a crucial role in our day to day life, which is an important element in todays changing world and it seems like a good concept seeking to make the life of a citizen more convenient and easy. Many people have the misconception that data is only important for the government, big organizations, and businessmen.
What is important for all is the data captured or generated. This data can give important numbers or metrics which can help in streamlining the business and projecting better business plans. Many companies may not offer their customers the expected level of service as they do not have centralized data for access which shows bad customer service, sales loss, or team collaboration issues to an organization.
Another important issue is the potential loss of financial benefits if the customer cannot wait for the data outage to be corrected. Since this data is of high importance it needs to be secure and accessible from anywhere, anytime. It can be stored and secured using various hardware and software technologies such as Cloud computing which is all about storing and retrieving your personal (or corporate) data from your own little area on the Internet.
With so many advantages of cloud computing, there is still a long way for the people to go. A small number of enterprises and businesses are using cloud technology today. Technology like the cloud is important for todays businesses as it reduces operational cost, increases work efficiency and accuracy. Organizations should start migrating their applications to cloud to protect their users data during unexpected disasters such as what we have in hand right now due to COVID-19.
Apart from safety, the cloud offers innumerable benefits on the grounds of flexibility, safety, and reliability. It is not just a few servers strung together with Cat5 chords. Instead, its a system comprised of thousands of servers typically stored in a spaceship-sized warehouse-or several hundred spaceship-sized warehouses, which secure the data by way of implementing resiliency at scale unheard of at every level of the infrastructure.
All files stored on secure cloud servers benefit from an enhanced level of security. One key advantage that cloud services offer is scalability. Cloud-based services are capable of rapidly scaling with demand. The security credential most users are familiar with is the password.
Cloud storage security vendors secure data using other means as well, such as Advanced Firewalls, Intrusion Detection, Event Logging, Internal Firewalls, Encryption, and physical security. At the same time information stored in Databanks is often protected by some form of security solutions, security breaches are rarely caused by poor cloud data protection. More than 40% of data security breaches occur due to employee error.
Improve user security to make cloud storage more secure
Use multi-factor authentication across all devices and systems:The widespread use of multi-factor authentication can reduce the risk of someone gaining unauthorized access to a system or application and using it to unleash malware or gain a backdoor into other data. The use of multiple factors requires an attacker to acquire multiple, independent authentication elements, reducing the likelihood of compromise.
Back up data consistently:Make copies of data at regular intervals and keep them in a separate location in case of vulnerability. This can help protect your company against significant losses in the event of a breach.
Password weaknesses:One should use complex passwords and should change these passwords frequently
Secure end-user devices:All devices that access the cloud-based resources should be subject to advanced endpoint security.
Encryption of data in transition must be end to end:All interactions with servers should happen over SSL transmission (TLS 1.2) to ensure the highest level of security. The SSL should terminate only within the cloud service provider network
If you have an interesting article / experience / case study to share, please get in touch with us at editors@expresscomputeronline.com
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Best practices and need of cloud storage for protecting corporate and personal data - CRN.in
InfiniteIO and Google Cloud help orgs reduce the cost of network-attached storage and speed cloud adoption – Help Net Security
InfiniteIO, which offers the worlds fastest metadata platform to accelerate application performance and reduce cloud latency, announced a new partnership with Google Cloud to significantly reduce the cost of network-attached storage and speed cloud adoption for organizations facing exponential data growth and infrastructure costs.
Customers and channel partners can now rapidly identify and move massive amounts of infrequently accessed yet invaluable files to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to lower total storage costs while keeping all of their files accessible and active to end-users. Simultaneously, they can increase application performance and storage utilization on-premises, without changing existing IT operations.
The partnership with Google Cloud further strengthens InfiniteIOs capabilities to help organizations simplify data management, reduce application latency, implement advanced analytics and undertake cloud migration at scale.
InfiniteIO Hybrid Cloud Tiering software with integrated application acceleration and GCP can optimize the user experience for applications and data by delivering unified access for file and object workflows regardless of the datas physical location.
InfiniteIOs metadata-based approach to hybrid cloud data management and Google Cloud technology optimizes the customer experience by increasing application performance and reducing cloud latency, said Mark Cree, CEO of InfiniteIO.
In these extraordinary times, a hybrid cloud built on combined InfiniteIO and Google Cloud technology can help IT leaders seamlessly add automation to rapidly lower infrastructure costs while delivering consistent, high performance for their critical business applications.
The new integration with Google Cloud Platform extends InfiniteIOs commitment to simplify and accelerate hybrid cloud storage, building on existing cloud and storage partnerships with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cloudian, Hitachi Vantara, IBM Cloud Platform, Pure Storage, and Scality among others.
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InfiniteIO and Google Cloud help orgs reduce the cost of network-attached storage and speed cloud adoption - Help Net Security
How to Future-Proof Your Business – Built In Austin
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The only thing we know to be constant is change.
Todd Sorrel, co-founder of online payments company ePayPolicy, said this mantra guides him as copes with the present andplans for the future.
For many tech companies navigating these difficult times, the future couldhold wins like developing an industry-leading solution or landing a massive client. But the unknown couldalso be laden with challenges beyondour currentglobal health crisis and economic downturn. Think:natural disasters, data breaches, or even a PR fiasco.
Thats why companies need to have contingency plans and tools in place to brace for the unknown. For many Austin companies, future-proofing their businesses prior to COVID-19 meant building remote-friendly infrastructure so that teams could remain efficient from any location.
By implementing cloud storage, pivoting business strategiesand changing communication styles,the following companies adjusted tothe current pandemic. But it wouldnt have been possible without ample preparation.
How did your team at ePayPolicy future-proof the business before COVID-19 struck?
Our philosophy has always been to work smarter not harder. By implementing this concept into our growth strategy, our managers and teams have built out processes that naturally future-proof our business. Implementing cloud storage, digital project management tools and on-the-go communication software are all things weve relied on and have allowed us to make a smooth transition to working remotely.
We also believe in establishing clear, cross-team goals that the whole company can get behind. This idea allowed us to keep everyone aligned and informed on company goals while we arent physically together. We have regular all-hands meetings via video conference to make sure that every employee feels heard and part of the process.
Weve been able to bring on new employees and train them successfully.
How is that strategy paying off for you now?
Weve been remote for almost two months and our teams continue to hit their goals. Morale is still strong. We continued to grow our team and went from 14 team members at the beginning of the year to 25. Weve had to adjust our training model since going remote, but with video conferencing and instant messaging, weve been able to bring on new employees and train them successfully.
Whats the most important lesson youve learned from this experience?
Be adaptable and trust employees to be self-sufficient. We have always had a culture of giving our team members big tasks and trusting them to execute. Now we get to watch each other grow and succeed through these unusual times. Moving forward, well continue to adjust our strategy as needed, as the only thing we know to be constant is change.
Uri Barasch
Head of Adia U.S.
How did your team at Adia future-proof the business before COVID-19 struck?
We created a fully digital on-demand staffing marketplace that works remotely and provides accessibility to jobs and talent. Our overall strategy is based on this core principle, and we believe that a zero-touch experience is not only providing a positive experience to our workers and clients right now, but that its going to set us up for success in the future.
We managed to quickly transition and actually expand our footprint across the U.S.
How is that strategy paying off for you now?
While we initially suffered from the lockdowns and the economic downturn, we managed to quickly transition and actually expand our footprint across the U.S. While this is a great short-term result, I think the long-term implications to our business are even greater.
Our goal is to aid an industry that traditionally relies heavily on face-to-face interactions and slow processes. I believe that COVID-19 will speed up the process of educating businesses and professionals that the future of the contingent workforce industry is an on-demand staffing model that leverages technology to provide an efficient experience and delivery.
Whats the most important lesson youve learned from this experience?
We initially underestimated the speed and the magnitude of the crisis. However, we were not only able to pivot but transition into new markets and industries. We changed our approach to expand our business from a few cities to being active throughout the U.S., which helped thousands of people find jobs during this crisis. This feat was only possible thanks to the team we put together over the past two years, and the culture we fostered. I am impressed by team members being proactive and taking on additional responsibilities to make this giant effort work successfully.
How did your team at US Money Reserve future-proof the business before COVID-19 struck?
We planned for the possibility of having a remote workforce. This shift relies on having a robust information technology and services division already in place in order to ease a massive shift in business operations.
There are two parts to our organization: sales and administration. Our admin team was readily able to work from home. They routinely engage in online meetings and digital conferencing. However, transitioning sales to remote work has been a larger challenge. Instead of having a large team under one roof, sales is now dispersed into micro-teams spread across multiple locations. The key to keeping them running as smoothly as possible has been ensuring that all the technology remains the same regardless of the physical environment.
Above all, there has to be constant communication across departments and amongst individuals. Its important to me to make sure that dialogue continues on a daily basis, whether we are in one big setting or working in remote locations.
We planned for the possibility of having a remote workforce.
How is that strategy paying off for you now?
We have been able to keep our employees safe and healthy, both physically and mentally. Through our micro-teams, our employees feel confident about working because they arent going into a large office space or public building. Everyone feels safe and that their mental well-being is being taken care of in their respective environments.
Im seeing more communication than ever before between departments and staff members. And weve been able to not only maintain, but grow our business. Were still accomplishing the initiatives we set forth at the beginning of the year and havent had to take a step back. Were fortunate to be able to continue our business operations when so many of us know people who are losing their jobs or have loved ones getting sick. Our remote shift created an environment where we can still prosper and maintain our quality of life the best we can.
Whats the most important lesson youve learned from this experience?
As close as I think we are as an organization and as strong as we are at communicating, we can always do better. The overall performance of our departments and employees has benefited from the increased individual attention employees receive on smaller teams. So when we come back together, were going to be stronger.
On the sales side, I learned that our micro-teams have been significantly beneficial. Agents receive even more individualized attention, especially since the intimidation of being in a large room has subsided. In these smaller environments, agents are able to grow and become even more secure and confident in their roles. Building this confidence is going to help prepare us for the future. When we do return to working as a larger group within a single environment, our agents will be even better than before and able to share what theyve learned.