June 15, 2020
This month we’re challenging you to the Inova Browser challenge. It’s easy. Just use your Microsoft Office 365 apps from your browser only, and you could win a great prize! For more info, visit us on LinkedIn.
Around the world, physical distancing has quickly become the new normal. Across many industries, enterprises are enabling employees to work from home, and executives are relying on tools like Microsoft’s Office 365 to maintain workforce productivity.
In this moment, it’s not just large firms undertaking the challenge of digital transformation. Small businesses and medium-sized firms are also embracing a new work-from-home vision.
“The size of your enterprise doesn’t reduce the significance of this opportunity. Small and medium-sized businesses can make big changes,” said Hans Kruithof, Managing Director at Inova Solutions.
Some end-users aren’t looking forward to the transition from brick-and-mortar to virtual office, however. And one reason is that, in some cases, working from home means switching from desktop-installed versions of familiar software like Microsoft Office productivity suite, to browser-based versions of the familiar software such as Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel and Word.
“There’s no two ways about it. For me, switching from desktop to web-based will definitely involve losing some old habits and stepping out of my comfort zone,” said Adriana Wong, Marketing Manager at Inova Solutions.
She’s not alone. Many users prefer the legacy versions over online versions. But from a cost management perspective, Finance and IT managers often embrace browser-based apps because they represent a welcome opportunity to cut human resource costs attached to the administration and maintenance of desktop-installed office productivity software.
“To be brutal, who needs a desktop? I’ve been asking myself that question for ten years,” said Jasper Kraak, Solution Architect at Inova Solutions.
With more end-users inevitably logging in to company servers, it is even more important to enforce secure remote work protocols. When you edit any document in Microsoft’s web-based apps, the bits and bytes that make up that presentation, spreadsheet or e-mail are not stored on your device at all. Instead, all of the organization’s data simply remains securely in Microsoft’s cloud. For many organizations, that issue of security is paramount.
Therefore, IT departments could establish rules of conditional access, so that employees can only use a company-approved device to access company documents using desktop-installed software. On any other device, employees would have to access company documents using the web-based apps. This could mean that IT departments have to configure multiple licensed VPN connections at employees’ residences. IT and Finance manager may need to collaborate on new physical asset management systems that allow employees to lease company-owned computers and set up workstations at home in order to log in to the virtual office. All of these considerations factor into the adoption process as companies navigate the pathway to successful digital migration.
To learn more about how your teams can leverage browser-based versions of Microsoft’s industry-leading software to work from anywhere, you can sign up for our June 25th webinar on The Benefits of Working from Browser Only.
Attendance for both webinars is free of charge, and registration is required.
Over the last six months, it’s been our pleasure to have you join us on the last Thursday of every month to take part in our series of free, expert-led webinars, where we help you empower innovation in your organization. In January, we took an honest look at why we want to eliminate our internal email at Inova. In February, we shared some practical ways you can tell if your team is using your collaboration tools optimally. In March, we focused on how you can optimize your Sales Team. In April, we shared tips for managing virtual offices and remote workers, while protecting your corporate data. And in May, we shared some of the practical ways we’ve been helping our teams to achieve full compliance with organizational policies.
Check out our YouTube channel to catch up with the whole webinar series. To get our newsletter, filled with more expert perspectives on technology adoption for your small or medium enterprise, subscribe here! We would love to hear from you! Stay in touch with us on Facebook or LinkedIn.
