Unsurprisingly Covid-19 has had a colossal impact on business priorities. Even the most robust business continuity plans could not account for years of change being compressed into just a few weeks. As well as the challenges of deploying remote working technology at pace, enterprise problems were compounded by shortages of equipment and internet connectivity which forced many to compromise on the solutions implemented. Most enterprises are now looking to review the cost efficiency and security of technologies adopted by home workers during lockdown. 

Blue Saffron has drawn on its experience of supporting hundreds of customers with thousands of end users during lockdown, and gathered additional intelligence by commissioning a survey of UK mid-market enterprises, which was undertaken by Larato in June 2020.  

Before the crisis, mid-market companies’ top priorities were improving productivity and efficiency and protecting against skills shortages. Now, although six in ten companies still need productivity and efficiency improvements, new priorities have supplanted these with; 

• Retention of a dispersed workforce 
• Survival of the business 
• Cost reduction 

 

Data from our survey shows that remote working is here to stay: 53% of enterprises expect to keep 10-25% of their workforce at home for the next 12 months, and 30% expect to keep half to quarter or between 25-50% of their workers at home for the rest of this year. Other industry opinion from mainstream consultancies like PWC concurs that some of the shift to home working will be permanent.  

However, while supporting home or remote working is now one of enterprises’ top requirement from technology, wider debates are opening  regarding the future shape of working practice and the opportunities it affords for contract working, more flexible employment models, including opportunities to internationalise. Using an outsourced approach could prove very useful when you consider that the pandemic is expected to make a return, bringing with it the subsequent disruptive waves of staff furloughing and redundancies.  

Another key impact of the pandemic is the de-prioritisation of retaining skilled workers. This recent survey showed that concerns about attracting and retaining skilled workers have fallen  by 25% to 19% – before the pandemic 44% of companies we polled stated it as a business priority. These are significant employment and recruitment issues and are likely to be important business considerations for the foreseeable future. 

47% of companies struggled to establish home working, with some being unable to access the most basic technologies needed – even laptops were hard to source. Others struggled with business continuity plans that did not meet expectations, which was a particular issue for CEOs.  

We found that while the majority of respondents used more than one collaborative communications platform, Microsoft Teams was the go-to application of choice for remote working: 

• 63% of companies used Microsoft Teams during lockdown 
• 46% were using it for the first time 
• 65% stated an intent to keep using Microsoft Teams post-lockdown 

 

Security and connectivity are key concerns for sustained remote working, with 65% of enterprises believing their security risks had increased. 74% reported that their customers were more concerned about cybersecurity and data protection. In addition to the security concerns of utilising domestic technology for commercial applications, almost three in four enterprises viewed a business grade broadband connection as necessary for productivity in a home working environment. Almost all of the enterprises surveyed said they struggled to source a business grade broadband plan to upgrade their remote workers’ connectivity.