The COVID-19 crisis and the economic conditions it has created have, in a very short space of time, created a ‘sink or swim’ environment for many British businesses. There’s those that are unfortunately struggling to adapt, and those that have taken the changes on the chin – and everything in between.
In our series of blogs on the modern workplace is everywhere, we are looking into the ways that the home working and remote working dynamic is changing with or without COVID, with the aim of helping businesses adapt quickly and efficiently to the changing conditions.
Every company is now a tech company
With the changing environment, it’s no longer sufficient to rely on legacy hardware or clunky systems. To keep pace and differentiate, it’s vital to have a technology infrastructure that underpins your business activity by being simple and secure.
Innovation is great and is absolutely essential too, but what remote workers need first and foremost are the right basics in place to continue seamlessly with their jobs.
Yet with an abundance of solutions and requirements out there, we appreciate that this isn’t necessarily as simple as it may seem. So where to start?
Connect with ease
Strong and reliable internet connections are the bread and butter of effective remote working environments, so in this first article we focus on these.
It’s possible to provide fast and easy connectivity via the cloud. Solutions such as the Cisco Meraki Wireless, Switching, Routing and Security portfolio enable all shapes and sizes of configuration quickly and easily. Or for truly small deployments such as home offices, Meraki Go offers either indoor or outdoor wireless access points and switches that can all be configured and managed from a mobile device app – and all with no technical know-how required, meaning your users can easily set up the solution themselves.
There’s no ‘one size fits all’
In situations where more robust or secure solutions are required, Cisco also offers an on-premise networking solution specifically designed for small businesses to connect employees and external users. This solution – the Catalyst 1000 Series, provides enterprise-grade and highly-secure network access, while still providing a reliable wireless connection and easy-to-manage solution.
Help navigating the minefield
The PAV team have selected solutions from the Cisco portfolio with many of our customers not only for Cisco’s longstanding position in their market, but because the ‘Cisco Designed’ portfolio is designed – and priced – exclusively with smaller businesses in mind.
We’ve found the solutions easy to buy, install, and manage for our customers, and with PAV’s help you can even try certain products before you buy by way of free, no-obligation trials.
Knowing you’re in the best hands of the world’s top networking company and the expert, local team at PAV provides you with the ideal combination to enable you to focus on running and growing your business, and providing technology innovation rather than focusing on ‘keeping the lights on’.
Webinar: Supercharge your small business IT with Cisco
Keep checking back to our website and social media over the coming weeks as we discuss different ways of facilitating modern working practices for small businesses. We also have a live webinar on Friday 5th June at 10am BST, in which we’ll provide expert guidance on the latest innovations across all the core areas of IT: networking, security, collaboration and compute.
