The Evolving Role of Cloud in a Post-Pandemic World

By Apac CIO Outlook | Monday, August 31, 2020

Fremont, CA: The COVID-19 pandemic has left the world in a state of shock. Businesses and people worldwide are adapting to a new normal work from home, and social distancing has become the trend. The work from home option was enforced due to the lockdown and extended further in many countries, fearing the dangerous implications of reopening offices under the grave circumstances. The pandemic has reshaped the landscape of employees of all types. People have been forced to turn their homes into makeshift offices for an unknown duration. However, such a large scale transition to work from home has posed new challenges for many companies.

One of the biggest challenges remains a lack of effective means of communication. Companies need to devise new methods of communication that can help them convey maximum information with minimum instructions. Organizations need to effectively communicate the company's vision and provide updates on ongoing works and projects. Micromanagement of employees becomes even harder when they are working from home. Monitoring each employee's productivity is even more challenging than imagined when you cannot keep a direct eye on them. It is hard to ensure that the employees are meeting their targets and deadlines.

Businesses need to find new ways to overcome these challenges that work from home brings along with it. Technology has become the driving factor, and employers need to ensure that the workforce has access to all the required technology and makes them feel supported and a fully connected part of the business while working from home. Businesses need to communicate with a disparate workforce and effectively work together to ensure that activities across the organization continue to align with company objectives. That means they must employ methods and tools that enable each member to communicate in the context of a team and organization-wide goals, see what others are working on, and how things are progressing day by day to understand where adjustments are required and when they are needed.

This is where cloud collaborative and work management technologies have been promising. The technologies transform the way organizations operate and enable companies to function in a more agile way. By leveraging cloud platforms, companies can enable a more collaborative environment by providing employees greater visibility of projects and specific tasks, helping them to keep progress on track, priorities in focus, goals aligned and use of resources efficient, all of which can be achieved while giving the employers more effective oversight into employee productivity and engagement.