How Businesses Are Using Technology to Streamline Remote Work

How Businesses Are Using Technology to Streamline Remote Work

A two-year study reveals that employees working from home show higher levels of productivity.
Several small businesses are adopting the hybrid working model, which allows a few select teams to work remotely, whereas other departments work from the office. Reports indicate that small businesses are two times more likely to hire fully remote employees as compared to enterprises.

However, remote work isn’t all unicorns and rainbows. It involves making drastic changes to the business environment to maintain cybersecurity and business efficiency.
Collaborating with an IT support company will help small businesses maintain an efficient remote workforce. Further, IT support providers are equipped with the tools and technologies to streamline daily remote business processes. Setting up the right IT infrastructure, with the help of your IT support company, will help your remote employees stay collaborative and productive.
Check out a few ways how IT support providers can help you streamline remote work.
Ensures Secure IT Environment
Small businesses that conduct remote operations may face several cybersecurity challenges. Mitigating them is non-negotiable.
Preventing unauthorized access to critical business information can curb lingering network vulnerabilities and protect sensitive data.
We have listed a few ways your IT support provider can help maintain cybersecurity.
Offers Virtual Private Network (VPN) Connection
A VPN connection provides your remote employees with secure access to critical business information. This tool establishes a secure tunnel between the remote employee’s device and the business’s server. VPN encrypts data during transmission, and masks the employee’s IP address, location, and search history.
An IT support company can establish VPN connection for your remote employees. VPN safeguards business information even if your remote employees connect over public networks from personal devices.
Implements Endpoint Protection
Endpoint security protects potential entry points like employee’s laptops, desktops, and mobile devices from cybersecurity threats. Endpoint protection solution encrypts the sensitive business information being transmitted between these entry points and the business’s IT network. It also prevents unauthorized access to business data through specific entry points. Further, this solution prevents the infiltration of malware into your network. Also, it denies access to applications/devices that do not meet enterprise-defined security standards.

Install Firewalls
Managed IT support companies install firewalls in the network to safeguard it from threats. This helps overcome security challenges in the following ways:

• Content Filter
Content filter in firewalls restricts access to suspicious browsing behavior. It prevents your remote workforce from accessing malicious websites that may inadvertently corrupt your IT network/device.
• Prevents Unauthorized Access
Firewalls act as an additional layer of security that prevents the entry of malicious files into your network through employee's devices.
Continuous monitoring of incoming/outgoing network traffic by firewalls prevents the entry of malware trying to access your IT ecosystem.

Performs Patch Management
Software patches refer to changes/additional features that are introduced in software/applications. These updates help fix bugs and plug vulnerabilities in the existing software.
Patch management is the process of identifying these changes in your IT systems and applying these updates. This is important as unpatched software/applications are highly vulnerable and can pose serious cybersecurity risks.
A managed IT support provider will take complete charge of the patch management process. They will keep track of upgrades and ensure that your software/applications are duly patched.

Provides Equipment for Remote Work
IT companies provide the equipment required to set up a comprehensive remote work environment. This helps employees conduct their work from anywhere. Remote employees may prefer using personal laptops and computers to work. But you will have better control over data security when they use enterprise-issued devices.
Your managed IT services provider will calculate and provide the total number of devices required for your remote employees. Further, they will help maintain updated devices and repair/replace them in the case of a device crash or malfunction.

Educates Remote Workforce
IT support providers educate your remote employees about averting cybersecurity risks. They train your remote employees to identify signs of phishing attempts and recommend ways to steer clear of cyber threats.
They educate employees on maintaining strong passwords that are not easily guessable.
An email filtering solution is incorporated. Employees are educated to check the credibility of messages using this solution.
They educate employees about the need to limit document access to “read-only” when sharing confidential information.
A company-wide awareness survey is conducted. Employees are trained to exercise caution when clicking on links from unknown sources.

Offers 24/7 Monitoring and Support
Technical issues like a server crash may occur unexpectedly. It is, therefore, important to continuously monitor your IT network. This will help predict technical hiccups and rectify them promptly.
Your managed IT services provider will monitor your IT landscape round-the-clock. Furthermore, remote employees may have flexible working hours. Your IT systems may be left vulnerable, in the absence of a 24/7 remote monitoring system.
24/7 remote monitoring ensures that all the components of your IT network are thoroughly monitored and checked for threats. This way, cybersecurity threats are thwarted before they impact your IT network.
Also, with access to readily available technical support, your remote employees can report and address technical problems even during non-working hours and on holidays. This expedites resolutions and supports uninterrupted business operations.

Facilitate Mobile Device Management
Remote employees may use their personal devices to conduct work-related activities. However, in doing so, they may end up becoming victims of cyber threats like data breach or malware infiltration.
IT support providers implement Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions that leverage portability and improve productivity without compromising data security. The solution also provides a unified console to manage mobile devices. MDM solutions use a client-server architecture, wherein the employee’s devices act as the client. The MDM server will remotely push configurations, applications, policies and manage devices over-the-air (OTA). Your IT support provider can then:
Install or remove applications on mobile devices
Monitor the devices connected to the MDM server
Configure basic settings on the mobile devices

Wrap Up
Remote work is becoming increasingly popular and is even being considered the new normal in terms of work culture. Embracing remote work will help small businesses stay on par with emerging industry trends. However, they should diligently take steps to maintain an efficient remote workforce and operations. Hopefully, the abovementioned points will elaborate on how partnering with an IT support provider can help streamline work in a remote working environment.