With many employees
still unable to
get to work today, questions are being asked as to what effect
it will have on British business?
With meetings cancelled and employees trying to access corporate
networks from their own home, the damage could be high, warned some
IT suppliers.
Security firm Symantec said, "With
the biggest snowfall for 18 years hitting the UK today, many
businesses have been forced to employ full remote working
practices. Whilst trying to ensure productivity levels remain high,
many are unwittingly putting their corporate networks at risk as
employees work from home without adequate security."
Symantec said remote working is one of the biggest areas of
exposure when connecting to corporate networks. Any remote devices
that connect to organisations infrastructure carry a greater risk
of infecting the network or becoming compromised.
John Turner, vice-president pre-sales EMEA at Symantec, said,
"There are two ways to ensure network security while working from
home. The first is to have a remote desktop that doesn't require
VPN connectivity. This protects the user, while also allowing
updates to be downloaded when connected to the internet.
"If a VPN is used, it should have network access control. This
will allow your company to quarantine devices which are not
up-to-date. It will allow access to systems such as e-mail, but
withhold access to important or secure files and servers. If you do
not need to allow remote access to everything, then don't. This
alone minimises a large risk."
Research from Mitel suggests that 52% of Brits working in office
environments will be able to work from home during the adverse
weather. The survey, conducted among 1,000 UK employees, also
revealed that forward thinking business are using a wider variety
of communications tools to make the most of their working day
whether inside or outside the office.
Communication tools such as phone and e-mail, which according to
the study ranked as high as face to face meetings in communication
terms, will enable the country to keep working in the face of the
bad weather. Respondents ranked telephone calls at (86%), followed
by e-mail at 85% as the most important tools.
Other electronic tools, including internet research (73%),
instant messaging (39%) and text messaging (35%), are also now
increasingly important to communications and make working from home
a reality.
Paul Louden, vice-president sales UK and Ireland at video
technology firm Polycom, said, "Today, England is getting a real
feel for flexible working. However there will be winners and losers
in terms of productivity. Companies which already employ a flexible
working approach will find that it's business as usual, but without
sufficient infrastructure, others will struggle."
He said, "With the weather set to continue for at least another
day, meetings will be cancelled left right and centre. Video
conferencing is one of the few technologies that can enable
collaboration with colleagues to the same extent as if it was face
to face - meaning there's no need to cancel important
meetings."
Louden said video conferencing was not just something for freak
weather conditions. Research by IDC for Polycom shows it can also
increase business productivity by 30% and collaboration by 35%.