A growing proportion of UK employees no longer operate out of a single, centralised office location. Yet, regardless of where they find themselves, mobile workers need the same access to data and applications as traditional employees. So how can we bridge this technology gap?

As a technology adviser privy to the needs of your client, you may already have observed a drift away from traditional working patterns among their employees. These changes are possibly even mirrored in your own workforce.

Once an employee was assigned to one desktop in one office for all their working days, but no longer. This is now giving way a more fluid system. Many currently split their time between multiple locations, such as other branch offices or customer premises.

In response to these changes, more and more employers operate a desk-share system whereby people who regularly work elsewhere don’t have their own dedicated desk in the office, but are allocated desk space as and when required. With a remote working model like this, office space can be reduced, resulting in a positive impact on company overheads. It is also a way to reduce pollution and traffic congestion, as well as a means of cutting IT costs.

Developing a strategy

‘Many employees these days are highly mobile, working out of different offices, or maybe on the road and needing to work at the airport or hotel,’ says Vuk Trifković, Senior Analyst with advisory firm Datamonitor. ‘But this presents technical challenges. You need to be able to make available on their device of choice every application they need, up to the required level of customer relationship management.’

Vuk says that an essential element of any remote working strategy is an appropriate network that delivers the required degree of performance and flexibility. ‘Multi-channel distribution of applications comes into play,’ he says. ‘You need an array of different channels so that you can deliver data and applications in the most suitable way, according to the needs of the individual user. It certainly isn’t a case of one-size-fits-all, where you dump the whole application onto one small screen, like that of a netbook. You’ve got to deliver the data required and get the timing right.’

Desktop virtualisation

Even where employees aren’t roaming the planet, there is benefit in flexibility, says Vuk. ‘You’ve got pressure to manage all the people working in your office,’ he says. ‘So you’ve got to consider the high value of real estate and the price you’re paying for energy for that site. Ideally, an employee needs to be able to sit at any computer and log onto a portal, thus necessitating a sort of virtual desktop infrastructure.’

With data kept on a central server, there is a reduction in the files an employee needs to have on a hard disk, but a potential increase in the network overhead. ‘With desktop virtualisation, you carry your desktop with you on a memory stick,’ says Vuk. ‘You’ve got your own familiar look and feel wherever you go. With IP telephony you also have number portability between different handsets. By such means, the traditional mould is broken and you can fit a lot more people into the same space.’

Remote working and you

Vuk sees a clear advice and implementation role for the SI in bringing about a remote working model, by enabling secure communications and seamless access to applications for everyone in an organisation, regardless of location. ‘Many technical advisers have an offer here,’ he maintains. ‘A good play for them is to offer some sort of consulting-and-change management service. They can help the client choose and deploy new desktop solutions, and even manage them on their behalf.’

The required technology

Delivering data, applications and communication streams to the point of need, regardless of where an employee is operating, is an essential part of enabling remote working.

Here are some of the essential elements of a remote working strategy:

• Virtual private networks (VPNs) mean that employees can have access to office systems from potentially any computer or intelligent device, while offering employers the reassurance that data remains secure.
  
• Video conferencing enables people in remote locations to communicate directly with each other and allows them to share data without the need to sit around the same table or to travel.
  
• Instant messaging allows people working from home to keep in regular contact with colleagues and keep abreast of any important information in real time.

‘Connecting the nomadic worker requires a VPN connection, either over IP or layer 2 or 3 Ethernet,’ says Alison Adams, Senior Manager of VPN data services with Virgin Media Business. ‘The SI can take a white label VPN service from their connectivity partner and then add features onto it to deliver value for the customer.’

A VPN solution can also offer economies of scale. ‘It allows you to easily add or move sites,’ says Alison. ‘Older technologies can be more costly and harder to manage than a VPN connection, which plugs right into a big cloud where the applications reside.’

Flexibility for the future

Alison advises that the network supporting a VPN needs looking at in terms of the volume of users and the different types of traffic it will carry. ‘You need a network that allows you to increase bandwidth as your needs change,’ she says. ‘The right network partner will work with the technical adviser to understand their end customer’s individual requirements. The appropriate configurations can then be applied, providing different circuits for different types of application. A network needs to have growth built into it, and to be as flexible as possible. It might also need to be consolidated with a legacy network if older assets need to be sweated.’

With any VPN solution, an employee must only be allowed to work with data as per a company's security policy. Access to certain applications will need to be restricted and connections audited regularly.

Further reading

Marieke Guy, Research Officer for the University of Bath, considers the case for remote working.
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue56/guy/#author1

Computing.co.uk explains why the growth of remote working demands a new approach to IT security.
http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/video/2241199/why-growth-remote-working

Management Today offers its own response to the rise in remote working.
http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/search/article/915839/mt-masterclass-remote-working/

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