How SMBs are adopting new work culture amid 21-day lockdown

New Delhi: With the 21-day lockdown period beginning from Wednesday, there is no choice for most companies in India other than adopting work from home mode, if they do not want to halt their operations altogether.

While it is not possible for every organisation to carry out their activities in full swing while working remotely simply because of the nature of their businesses, those companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMBs), who can afford remote working are trying to adopt the new culture, leading to an increase in demand for video conferencing and other collaboration tools in India.

Some of the collaboration tools that have gained increased traction due to remote working include Microsoft Teams and Zoom, among others. Microsoft Teams is a software solution that enables SMBs to perform many essential business tasks remotely. With Teams, one can virtually chat, collaborate, and meet with employees, customers, suppliers, and partners. The Microsoft Office apps are built right into Teams, so you can use and share the files you create in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook without leaving the tool.

“Teams is a part of Office 365. If your organization is licensed for Office 365, you already have it and you can log in here. Even if you don’t have Office 365, we want to help ensure that everyone has access to Teams during these challenging times,” Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365, wrote in a blog post.

Reliance Jio recently announced that it is combining its digital capabilities with Microsoft Teams to enable individuals, students, educational and healthcare institutions to continue their professional lives while still practicing social distancing.

Zoom also has several offerings for educators, learners, as well as those working from home.

Networking giant Cisco said that it has seen “significant growth” in the usage of its web conferencing and video-conferencing service Webex in India.

With a suite of offerings such as Knowledge Management System (KMS), Learning Management System (LMS) and Rapid Content Authoring Platform Articulate 360, Stratbeans, a leading learning management solutions provider is also helping companies adopt the work from home culture.

These tools not only equip businesses to share information in real-time but also facilitate collaboration among employees in a contactless manner.

With Articulate 360, subject matter experts get easy-to-use tools for recording computer screen and audio, and also interacting in a cloud-based collaboration area, where all work items such as videos, ppt, pdf can be stored and reviewed in a controlled workflow. (IANS)

Also read: Older PCs double productivity losses of SMBs: Microsoft India

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