You still speak on the Telephone? Wow that’s so 2019

By Tom Carnegie, Consultant

Technologies that just weeks ago were seen as offering secondary or optional solutions are now central to our working life.

Take look at Google Play or Apple’s App store and the two most downloaded apps in the business category are Zoom followed by Microsoft Teams.  Conference call offerings from Google and Skype follow closely behind.

Zoom’s growth has been astronomical, with the Company recently reporting daily users spiked to 200 million in March, up from a pre-Covid 10 million in December. Apptopia, an independent app tracking firm, reports that the Zoom app was downloaded 2.13 million times on 23 March, the day the UK announced its lockdown, up from 56,000 a day two months earlier.

Of course technologies like web conferencing or a remote access to a server aren’t new. But the level of adoption – albeit forced – is.  Whereas many workforces – and managers – traditionally were suspicious of home working, viewing remote and flexible working as negative to productivity, with hands now forced the only question is to what degree the use of this technology will become the new norm.

Anecdotally many  businesses say that despite remote working many areas are managing “business as usual”. Could there even be a business benefit?  NordVPN has collated its data on the use of business VPNs and found that those working remotely in Europe are working as much as two hours extra each a day. The US is even higher, putting in a full three hours of extra work.

The UK’s new found appreciation for remote working technology is best summarised in the words of the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who addressed the public via video link while self-isolating to say he would continue to work from home through “the wizardry of modern technology”.

Today these technologies offer a means to an end as businesses navigate through indefinite periods of lockdown, they also give employers a level of security in coping with other exceptional events that may arrive in the future.  At the very least, many of those face-to-face meetings which come with a significant transport expense may well no longer seem as necessary.

COVID 19 has thrust these remote technologies into mainstream, ten years ago no one knew what an iPad was.  Will Covid be the catalyst that does for the office what the smart phone did for pagers?