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April 2009 - Special Topic
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Strategic Technology Horizons
Ideas and Information for Your Business
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Welcome!
Given the way mass media hypes a story, it is difficult
to access the true risk from the current Swine Flu
outbreaks. Whether we end up with millions sick with
the flu, or continue to have isolated outbreaks, your
business should be ready for the impact.
So why is this a Strategic Technology
Management topic of discussion?
Regardless of the size of the outbreak, it is
reasonable to expect most businesses will feel a
direct or indirect impact due the Swine Flu. Smart
technology actions can mitigate or eliminate the
impact.
No, I am not joking. Read on.
Best Regards,
Allen
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Allen Falcon
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Protecting Your Business from the Flu
When most business owners think about the impact
of a pandemic illness, the first scenario is often most
or all employees calling in sick. Realistically, the
chance of large populations catching the flu is not
probable.
Your business is much more likely to feel the
impact from the response and containment measures
the government will use to minimize the outbreak.
Here are some more likely scenarios to consider
based on published reports of possible containment
strategies.
- One or more employees cannot come to work
because they or a family member may have been
exposed
- One or more employees cannot come to work
because their children's schools or daycare services
have been closed for a week to ten days
- A larger outbreak causes subways and bus lines
to stop running, or to run on very limited service
- Employees need additional time off due to
cancellation of sports, clubs, and other school
programs
In each of these scenarios, your employees are
healthy but have pressing personal demands that
conflict with showing up at work.
Here are several ways you can mitigate the likely
scenarios related to Swine Flu.
- Enable users to work from home,
including
employees that do not normally have remote access.
This
may mean allowing workers to user their personal
home computers to access your network.
- Verify the capacity of your remote access (VPN,
Citrix, etc.) services
- Be prepared to provide the access, software, and
instructions to users that do not normally work
remotely.
- Consider the use of supplemental services, such
as GoToMyPC, if needed to augment existing capacity
- Have your IT staff create a plan to install and
support additional remote workers
- Verify your Communication Capabilities
- Ensure employees know how to check email and
voicemail from home.
- Ensure that employees have access to, and know
how to use, conference calling services
- For employees with a need, provide access and
instruction to web and/or video conferencing services
- Verify your Backup Service Capabilities
- Make sure work being done remotely is captured
in backups
- Make sure you can use your backups to move
large amounts of information, if needed, to remote
workers
- It is best to have off-site backups you can access
via the Internet from alternate locations, if needed.
- Create a Support and Operations Plan
- If remote access capacity is an issue, develop a
staggered work schedule for employees working from
home
- Adjust IT staff support hours to accommodate
employees working from home around kids' activity,
nap, and sleep schedules
- Instruct IT Staff to check remote users' computers
for (computer) viruses and malware to prevent harm to
your network and systems
- Review software licenses to understand when
and how you may loan copies to temporary remote
users
- Setup mechanisms to track software provided to
employees working from home so that the additional
licenses may be removed when they are no longer
needed
None of the above suggestions are costly or time
consuming. Most can be executed when and if
needed. With reasonable thought and preparation,
reasonable actions can be taken to mitigate the
possible impact of the Swine Flu on your business.
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