The four pillars to implement new ways of working
Our research has revealed four key actions to address the challenges of new ways of working:
1. Beef up your infrastructure
Now companies can see what their new working environment looks like, it’s time to create a future proof plan. As new ways of working become embedded, now is the time to get the right architecture and applications in place to power your communication platform. How are you going to leverage your collaboration platform? How are you going to use cloud technology to meet your strategic business objectives? Most businesses are using some element of cloud collaboration, often as part of an optimum blend of cloud working and enterprise technology. Infrastructure for supporting new ways of working needs to become more robust, from the network infrastructure to hardware endpoints. That also means continuing to beef up VPN connectivity, security and capacity. Contact lens maker Bausch & Lomb collaborates with Microsoft Teams, Cisco AnyConnect and uses VMware Carbon Black for endpoint security. Jim Lacey, IT Manager, says: “Key drivers for future collaboration are platform strategy, resilience, reliability, more modern technology, which is easier to support. And we are definitely looking more to the cloud type solutions.”
Bausch & Lomb has to take account of its manufacturing technology as well as office collaboration. So an entirely cloud-based model of collaboration is not practical.
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If you can justify why you need on-premise solutions, our IT team will listen and understand. We are producing a lot of lenses. If you've got an issue with the cloud service supplier, and you're producing over a billion lenses a year, you can very quickly take down manufacturing. So that's why we keep as much as possible on-premise of the pure raw manufacturing interaction that we can support 24/7."
Jim Lacey
IT Manager,
Bausch & Lomb
Security must be baked into every decision – from designing business processes through to securing endpoints. It has not been possible to throw a ring of steel around corporate networks for some time. As new ways of working become the new reality, many businesses are securing more remote devices and more virtual and dispersed solutions. Shadow IT, where employees use unauthorised solutions or devices, is still very much an issue. Centralised control of access permissions and routine security tasks is key. A single centralised platform is a basic requirement for being able to detect rogue network traffic that could indicate a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.
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