The speed with which COVID-19 has spread has put on display the incredible ability of many organizations to be agile, think up innovative solutions, and implement them in near real time to protect employees and ensure business continuity. Nothing brings the “smarts” out of people like a sudden crisis — even events, like the one we face today, that seem particularly daunting.
While there’s a lot being written around the effect of COVID-19 on businesses, it has been amazing to see the impact on traditional work cultures already. A case in point: Japan, where spending long hours in the office is still seen as crucial to success.
According to Fortune magazine, “Panasonic, NEC, and Mitsubishi are among the growing number of firms that have mandated or recommended remote work for tens of thousands of staff. The change is testing the ability of the nation’s companies to embrace a more flexible work style — overturning a workplace culture that dates back decades and values physical presence and endurance of long hours over productivity or efficiency”.
This will certainly be amplified with the Summer Olympics in Tokyo just around the corner.
Employees in Korea also traditionally spend long hours in the office. It’s part of a work culture that expects employees to leave office only after their supervisor does. The Korea Herald reported that the new coronavirus outbreak has led to drastic, albeit temporary, changes in South Korea’s workplace. Many major companies including Samsung, LG, and KT are letting employees work from home or work flexible hours.
The impact is no longer confined to one region or even just Asia Pacific. The challenges companies face are global. Consulting firm PwC recently looked at the steps companies can take to maintain business continuity. Their takeaway? How companies respond to the challenge today can potentially position them to thrive in the future. And Harvard Business Review offered five ways companies can respond to major disruptions, including acknowledging that all or part of the workforce might need to work remotely.
It’s impossible to predict the impact these short-term measures will have on attitudes toward remote work. Will they precipitate a permanent change in work cultures and the way companies look at work? And will more companies look at work as a thing we do, not a place we go to every day?
Here in APJ, Citrix is working closely with several companies in China that have been particularly agile in using technology to maintain business continuity by helping employees work safely and securely from home. And the key word here is securely. Working from home can help companies maintain productivity but can also leave your IT infrastructure vulnerable to attack if you don’t have the right tools.
Thankfully, there are technologies that can protect companies and their workers.
For example, large automotive firms in China are moving quickly and working with Citrix to enable operational continuity by providing their employees secure access to apps and data while they work from home. A large Shanghai-based automaker is enabling its R&D team to continue collaborating and working as a team even as they operate remotely. Another large manufacturer keeps the lights on by providing secure, remote access to office applications via their intranet. This will differentiate these companies from the competition and set them up for success when the we get past our current global challenges.
Learn more about how Citrix is helping its customers maintain business continuity. You can also download our white paper paper to learn best practices for a complete business continuity strategy and how Citrix technologies provide secure access to apps and data on any device, over any network or cloud.
