How to Keep Business Going During COVID-19 Outbreak

Posted on March 2, 2020 by Gento

We are in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak affecting China and many parts of Asia, which sees restrictions on travel and mass quarantine of suspected cases to curtail further spread.

In the face of such massive disruptions and threat of infection, your business urgently needs new strategies to function, while ensuring safely for every employee. 

One approach immediately comes to mind — working from home — to minimize human interaction and prevent possible risk of transmission.

However, can your business continue operating with reduced manpower, or even without any physical presence, in the office?

Remote access and management presents the obvious answer.

Staff can work from home or a safe location, reducing possible infection exposure, yet having constant access to the company’s resources and services. They can still communicate virtually with their colleagues and work offsite to maintain the smooth flow of corporate operations.

Essentially, it will be business as usual.

Here are some key features you should consider when looking to invest in remote access for your company.

• Centralized uninterruptible 7/24 control and monitoring. Aspects of monitoring include alerts on device performance and health, general performance checks and detailed investigations. This ideally can be automated and conducted over the web for management from any place, any time. The round-the-clock control and access enable continuous operations even during natural/ man-made disasters and unforeseen crises such as epidemics. By tracking remote user and system events, any abnormal activity or potential cyberattacks will be flagged out and attended to promptly. 
• Security and user privilege access/ authorisation. You as the admin manager/ commander decides on the levels of access and rights for different personnel, with centralized authentication and authorization capabilities. Access and control of equipment based on user-customizable criteria, coupled by consolidated logging and audit trails, help to protect corporate resources and system integrity.
• Remote and local access with multiple users. Enabling access from smartphones, mobile devices, laptops, PCs or workstations allows control of equipment by different-level personnel over the corporate network for uninterrupted operations.
• Remote maintenance. General maintenance of your company’s systems can be partly or fully automated; if it can be done in the background or after office hours, that’s a bonus.
• Integration with existing heterogenous enterprise systems and platforms, including OCR technology and big data analysis. Seamless incorporation of hardware and software, which may span multiple sites, minimize customization and configuration. This translates to less time and cost for setup and deployment.
• Snapshots collection and storage. Supervisors have the ability to automatically collect and save video snapshots from equipment for viewing and share device status with multiple users.
• Other features that apply to your particular industry such as factory automation and integration with complex proprietary processes.

According to Market Research Future, major drivers of the remote access management market are the increasing employee strength globally and the flexibility to work from anywhere, anytime. It is simple, flexible and provides cost-effective licensing.

IHS Markit* projected that units of KVM (keyboard, video and mouse) switches and consoles purchased in Asia will grow 4.5% annually from 2019 to 2023. Occupying about 45% of the worldwide market, this region shows a growing trend of implementing such solutions to enhance business competitiveness.

The coronavirus outbreak presents unprecedented opportunity to consider adopting remote management strategy. Take the first step and check out Raritan’s solutions or contact a team member today.

* Source — IHS Markit | Technology, now a part of Informa Tech, KVM Switches & Serial Consoles Report – 2019, July 2019. Market share is based on revenue. Results are not an endorsement of Raritan. Any reliance on these results is at the third-party’s own risk.