PWC business leaders survey on remote working

Ways of working have changed drastically over the last year. Below we highlight significant facts on how 200 UK businesses* have adapted to remote and home working. We also give our recommendations for how your IT and infrastructure can support these changes, securely and effectively.

*Data Source: EY-Parthenon & PWC

are feeling overwhelmingly positive about the prospects for their businesses moving forwards

say adaptations were needed for home and remote working

have now deployed Teams		have now deployed Zoom		have now deployed Slack

are reporting problems with staff working at home, caused by poor connectivity

are considering investing in connections for remote and home workers, to enable them to better connect to their systems and corporate networks

Our recommendations:

1. Deploy cloud infrastructure for reliability and availability, such as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace.
2. Deploy security to protect infrastructure, accounts and devices; both proactive and reactive measures.
3. Deploy an effective internal communications platform, such as Teams, Zoom or Slack.
4. Secure all accounts for all services, for example with Multi Factor Authentication (MFA, also known as Two Factor Authentication) and Single Sign-on (SSO).
5. Recognise the importance of good and stable internet connections for remote and home workers in order for them to be able to work effectively.
6. Cater for voice and telephony for remote and home workers; cloud-hosted solutions are ideal for this to reduce complexity, and they do not require physical desk phones.
7. Educate and train users on security and compliance practices when working remotely and from home.

Further things to be aware of:

• The much discussed move to hybrid working.
• The PSTN and ISDN switch-off in 2025.
• The availability of 5G mobile data services.