The number of remote workers and those seeking to work flexibly continues to rise. With 3.7 million employees now working remotely, it’s clear the working environment is changing. Are you worried about getting left behind without a modern workplace? We know a thing or two about managing remote workers. So, let us tell you our secret to successfully managing remote workers – Microsoft 365.

Think of Microsoft 365 as your one-stop-shop for creating a modern workplace – allowing employees to work from any location, worry-free from any threats. So, here’s a breakdown of our five top tips to managing remote workers with Microsoft 365.

1. Around the clock accessibility

The first step to successfully implementing remote working is giving employees the access they need to work as normal.

With Microsoft 365 in place, accessing vital documents has never been easier. Your employees will have access to OneDrive – an online storage platform allowing you to save files and then access them anywhere on any device. Simple.

But what about shared company files? That’s what SharePoint’s for. It’s a web-based collaborative platform that’s a part of Microsoft 365. SharePoint allows employees to:

• Share and manage content, knowledge and applications
• Quickly find information
• Seamlessly collaborate across the organisation

2. Work together when everyone’s apart

You don’t have to be sat next to someone to work with them anymore. One of the perks of Microsoft 365 is having access to all Office 365 products and their benefits – including Word, PowerPoint, Excel plus many more! You’ll have the ability to share and collaborate with co-workers on documents in real time. Whether you’re putting together a proposal, presentation or project plan, you’ll be able to work on it together. These products allow employees to collaborate on work together, even if they’re halfway around the world.

3. A secure workplace is a happy workplace

To make remote working work, it must be safe and flexible. Organisations need to have the correct software and security in place to keep employees and company data protected. The threat landscape’s evolving and staying protected from threats can be challenging – especially when half of your workforce work remotely.

But don’t worry. Microsoft 365 has got you covered. When you purchase Microsoft 365, you’ll have instant access to a range of security features you can enable, including:

• Advanced Threat Protection: keep your files, emails and Office 365 products protected against attacks.
• Windows Defender: keep your Windows computer protected against adware, spyware and viruses.
• Mobile device management: securely manage employee’s mobile devices. You can manage security policies, wipe a device and view device reports.
• Secure Score: you can find out how secure your organisation truly is in Office 365. View recommendations based on your activities and security settings.

4. Communication is key

Communication is key. And remote working shouldn’t affect this. Many businesses worry about a lack of communication once they allow employees to work remotely. But, let us put your worries to rest.

Microsoft 365 opens your business up to different communication channels, including; Skype, Teams and Yammer. These three tools will allow you to carry on with regular communications. Have your morning catch-ups with a video conference on Skype, keep your team aligned with a group chat in Teams and pass on those vital company announcements through Yammer. Make employees feel like they’ve never left the office.

5. Break your bad habits

When 5 O’clock hits, do you often sit and wonder what you did today? With MyAnalytics, employees can see a summary of how they’ve spent their time, giving them an insight to:

• Meeting hours
• Time spent on emails
• How many focus hours you had
• Time spent on chats and calls
• The documents worked on
• After hours work

From this information, MyAnalytics will provide employees with suggestions on how they can improve their working habits at home – whether it’s reducing unproductive meetings or getting a better work/life balance. Work smarter, not harder and start building better work habits with MyAnalytics.

So, there you have it. Our five tips for successfully managing remote workers. If you’re thinking of implementing remote working or wanting to adopt the latest technologies, then we highly recommend rolling out Microsoft 365.

For support and guidance on this transition, contact our experts to discuss what it would take for your company to adopt a remote working environment through Microsoft 365.

Do you know SQL Server and Microsoft Server 2008 go end of support in the next 12-months? Read on to find out what this means for your business and what your next steps should be.

The all important dates:

 

SQL Server 2008/2008 R2 End of Support – 9th July 2019

Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 End of Support – 14th January 2020

 

What does this mean for your business?

After these dates, SQL Server and Microsoft Server 2008 will no longer be supported by Microsoft. This means no more security updates, performance updates or patches from Microsoft. You’ll still be able to use SQL and Windows Server, but you’ll no longer receive support leaving your business increasingly vulnerable to new cyber threats.

Your options to extend support

Microsoft are extending support for both these solutions, including security updates, for 3 years if they are moved to Azure. This could mean re-hosting your 2008 servers in Azure or a full migration to Azure Virtual Machines. But the right solution for your business depends on a variety of factors, including your current workloads, the impact on the wider business and cost implications.

Plan your migration

Cloud Direct’s 2008 End Of Support Assessment Package is designed to provide you with the knowledge you need to make an informed decision and to approach your migration with confidence. The assessment package provides customers with a review of their current 2008 server set up and insight into their migration options.

Benefits of the package

This package will help you prepare and plan the best way to handle your migration. Providing you with an understanding of the impact on the business and potential costs.

What the assessment looks at

The assessment provides a high-level overview of your Windows and SQL estate including a comprehensive review of your current set up and assessment of the individual workloads on each server. Building a comprehensive understanding of what you use the servers for and the impact on the business if one of these fails or is breached.

Your individual report

Once the assessment is completed you will receive a full report with recommended actions for individual items based on the review’s findings. This will include a Road Map for your migration outlining the recommended migration option for your business with an estimated cost breakdown.

Don’t miss the deadline for SQL and Windows Server 2008 End of Support. Get in touch today to discover the opportunities for your business.

Are you using Microsoft cloud IT solutions? Do you want to unlock features and collaboration streams you didn’t know were available to you? Integrate Azure seamlessly with your existing Microsoft tools, making them work even harder for your business.

As any collector knows, there’s more value in a complete set.

Start your collection

Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform built with business needs in mind. As such, it works perfectly with your current setup. Chances are you already have a few Microsoft services as part of your collection of cloud IT solutions. If you can answer yes to any of these questions, this blog post is for you:

• Have you got your team connecting and collaborating with Office 365, Microsoft Teams or Skype for Business?
• Are your customers getting amazing customer service, with Dynamics 365?
• Have you got the full Microsoft 365 set of Office 365, Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility + Security all rolled into one?

Yes? Then it’s time you consider adding Azure to your collection. Get the set.

Azure Active Directory and apps with Office 365

Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) is an identity and access management system designed to help you manage your user and group accounts, set up single sign-on and sync passwords.

The good news is, if you have Office 365, you get a free subscription to Azure AD. The better news is, by upgrading you gain a whole host of additional management capabilities. You could use gain broader functionality with the Azure AD Application Proxy. This lets you publish on-premise web apps with Azure AD. Or, improve the flexibility of your management systems using Microsoft Identity Manager and create dynamic groups or set up self-service group management.

And, grant granular application access with Integrated apps (including third-parts SaaS apps and Power apps), so that if you want to roll out access on an enterprise scale, you can do it en masse. Go even further and run customised web apps and mobile apps in Azure, and integrate these easily with SharePoint Online to share information gained from these apps with your teams.

Secure customer data with Dynamics 365, Power BI and Azure

Access is one thing. On the other side of the coin, how do we prevent threats from accessing data?

Dynamics 365 hosted on Azure provides integrated advanced encryption and security capabilities for sensitive data, such as customer information. By coupling Azure Service Bus with Dynamics 365, you gain a reliable information delivery service that improves communications between systems. Not only does this make transferring data easier, but also it is reliably secure.

As well as keeping this data safe from external threats, you also want to use customer data, such as preferences, behaviours and actions, to inform your decision-making. With Azure and Power BI, you can take stored data and create real-time business intelligence analytics. Power BI Embedded on Azure even lets you load custom visualisations to suit your business’ individual needs.

And before you ask, yes there’s plenty to learn from Dynamics 365 reports, but we say boost your reporting power ten-fold with Power BI’s advanced functionality. Read more about it, here.

Get an expert to value your collection

Cloud Direct is an Azure Expert MSP, ready and waiting to offer our knowledge and resources to a business looking to expand their cloud IT solutions with Azure.

Collect and connect, in the cloud.

 

Microsoft made it clear at this year’s Build conference that Azure development is one of their key focus areas. Scott Guthrie, the Executive Vice President of the Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise group said:

“One of the defining aspects of cloud computing is the ability to innovate and release new technology faster and at greater scale than ever before.”

 With the kind of rapid evolution we’ve grown to expect from the cloud, Azure is likely to look quite a bit different in five years. With that in mind, we’ve gathered our top predictions for what Azure will look like in 2025.

Information overload

By 2025, IDC predicts that the total amount of data created will reach 163 zettabytes. That’s a massive number and will drive even more organisations to adopt some form of cloud computing just to store the droves of information they need to operate.

Azure is already well-prepared for this huge increase in raw data – it’s got more global data regions than any other provider to date. It’s likely that we’ll see even more upscaling in this area, though.

Microsoft is preparing for the spread of smart homes, smart offices and smart cities, which it predicts will produce a combined 250 petabytes of data per day. Expect the Internet of Things (IoT) to give way to the ‘Internet of Everything’. AI will connect people with their devices, their offices and their cities.

Dealing with the data

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”

So says Sherlock Holmes, and you can bet that Azure developers are thinking the same thing. The massive uptick in data means nothing if it can’t be used and analysed, and humans just can’t work with that much data efficiently. They need help if they want to use their data to drive innovations and development at all.

AI will undoubtedly play an increasing role for Azure users, allowing for rapid analysis of swathes of information. Previously under-utilised data will become one of the most valuable assets for many organisations – once the knowledge it offers is unlocked by machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Azure’s Cognitive Services will be employed to analyse, report and predict on a far larger scale, and will likely come built-in to almost every new app. On-site hardware for most organisations just won’t have the ability to perform these tasks, so the cloud will be employed. Effective analysis enabled by AI will no longer become a bonus; it’ll be the main event.

The rise of new media

The democratisation of VR and AR will give way to an exponential increase in use-cases for the technology. Azure’s Media Services takes the processing, streaming and encoding burden off of individual developers and organisations, opening up the possibilities for ever more ambitious experiences and functions. Expect to see Azure at the forefront for the use of new media by 2025.

Hybrid cloud futures

IDG’s 2018 Cloud Computing Survey offers a number of insights that point to the future of cloud computing. Amongst their discoveries was that a multi-cloud strategy is an increasingly popular method of adoption for enterprises. Both public and private cloud use has increased since last year, and integration between the two will be even more important for a broader range of organisations in the next few years.

Azure offers all flexibility that multi-cloud and hybrid cloud strategies you could need. With its Stack and SQL offerings already enjoying success, it’s likely that business use will have grown significantly by 2025. Azure’s secure cloud offerings is one of the key factors behind its rapid increase in market share – another insight offered by IDG’s survey.

Cloud Direct’s Azure predictions

Scott Guthrie is aware of what people will come to expect from the cloud in the coming years:

‘The technology…is really being bet on to deliver radically new digital experiences that completely transform your organisation’s business model.”

These new digital experiences will be the result of a change in the way that people will use Azure by 2025. The percentage of organisations using the cloud just to store and retrieve data will – and has already begun to – drop, while the percentage that expects data analysis, hybrid integration and new media support will rise.

The way we work is changing alongside the cloud as its capabilities are broadened and integration is wider spread. Data analysis will no doubt play a bigger role in most industries with the ability to gain near-instant insight from swathes of information, and there’s no telling what the rise of new media will bring with it. Meetings in VR? Augmented reality architecture planning? Whatever the application, there’s no doubt that entire industries will experience a paradigm shift. Azure will be both driving and responding to this shifting understanding and use of the cloud.

Enterprise cloud computing is growing rapidly. By 2020, cloud-specific spending is expected to grow more than six times the rate of general IT spending. This investment in cloud technologies has meant that once-distant capabilities are now available for business use. Suddenly, things like artificial intelligence are a workplace norm.

For example, for cloud applications like Office 365, there have been multiple AI deployments that work to help people operate more collaboratively and efficiently, without the need to donate more time.

Here are four Office 365 AI updates you ought to know about:

MyAnalytics for Office 365

For increased productivity, Microsoft has deployed MyAnalytics in Office 365 to help you visualise and interpret data in a more digestible way. It uses AI and machine learning to pull data together, which is generated based on your behaviour across the Office 365 suite.

Previously called Delve Analytics, this new AI update helps you and your teams understand insights into how you’re working. As a result, you can recognise how you spend time at work; across meetings; answering emails; the time you designate as ‘focus time’ and time spent ‘after-hours’. It all helps you become more productive.

Ideas in Excel

Ideas is a recent AI update for Excel. In short, it lets you understand your data through the use of visual summaries, trends and patterns. To use Ideas in Excel, you can highlight specific data points and click on the ‘ideas’ button, which will then use AI to analyse your data and show you interesting visual summaries.

This is a great way of understanding areas of data you might not have considered to be valuable. Perhaps there’s a correlation between two data points you haven’t spotted, or you didn’t take note of important outliers. Ideas will help you understand how your data is connected.

Language translations in Word for Mac

Microsoft recently published a series of Office 365 updates on their website, one of which was new AI capabilities in Word for Mac.

Mac users can now translate portions of text or entire documents into more than 60 different languages, including 11 neural machine translations, which use machine learning to translate a word like a human would, so your sentence doesn’t lose context.

Word for Mac also comes with Resume Assistant (CV Assistant for us Brits), which helps you create more engaging CVs using personalised insights on LinkedIn.

Draft Sync

Microsoft has released an AI update that lets you sync your email drafts between multiple devices automatically, reducing your need to rewrite emails.

Given that more than half of the UKs workforce will be remote working by 2020, Draft Sync means you can pick up where you left off from on your mobile, for example, so you can continue to work while you’re out and about, without having to start again.

A brave new world

Understanding how to make the most of these AI updates in Office 365 can be a daunting task. Quite often, new updates can have you feeling like your elderly grandmother at a computer – overwhelmed and unsure of where to start.

With Cloud Direct, however, we’ll show you the ropes, so you can get the most out of these updates. With a little help, you can work smarter and harder without having to sacrifice any of the precious time you need to drive the business forward.

‘Never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today.’
– Aldous Huxley, Brave New World.

The UK is considered to be the European hub for tech. Venture capitalist investment is three times higher than any of our European counterparts over the last two years (approximately £5 billion). We are in an unprecedented fourth revolution and STEM is the most in-demand skillset for the British workforce owing to the digital transformation that most businesses are undertaking.

And yet, the UK has reached a shocking shortfall of 173,000 workers, costing the UK economy £1.5 billion a year. How long can Britain maintain its top spot as a tech giant with the skills gap growing larger every year?

According to Microsoft, 65% of students today will end up working in jobs that don’t currently exist. With this exciting future ahead, why is there such a large coding skills gap in the UK?

1. Gender

The gender gap is a massive contributor to the skills shortage. So, what’s causing this issue?

‘Pinkification’

Gender stereotyping from birth can be largely held to blame for the lack of women showing an interest in coding from an early age. From toys and clothes to job roles and career possibilities, historically we have hardwired the female gender to cast aside maths, science and technology because of their ‘boyish’ connotations.

This is not new news. In fact, Dr Hannah Dee, previously named the ninth most influential woman in UK IT, is pioneering an annual event encouraging women to enter the IT industry.

Education

At GCSElevel, girls are outstripping the boys across the board. However, it’s the boys who outnumber the girls 8 to 2 in Computer Science classes at university level. Young women aren’t being encouraged into a career in STEM subjects – at least not as much as young men. At such a vital development stage, educational institutions need to do more. Not just to broaden the general uptake of STEM subjects, but to encourage women into them, too.

The good news is we’re starting to see more of this. The government has introduced a drastic shake up of the traditional ICT lessons in schools for children as young as 5. Instead, the focus is on a ‘computing’ curriculum with a big emphasis on coding. Putting this time and energy into the coding topic with children at such an early age should start to make an impact on the subjects they choose further down the line.

Alongside the governments’ rigorous curriculum change are pioneers like Kano who are encouraging exploration in the world of coding with toys, games and online activities. Whether it’s in the classroom or at home, children can embrace the world of coding from a fun and engaging perspective, regardless of their gender.

2. Diversity

There appears to be a certain ‘stereotype’ of your typical UK coder; fresh, young (likely male) university graduates who invariably come from a white, British background. They demonstrate those ‘geeky’ skills that make them an excellent candidate for sitting at their desk, doing 14-hour days.

As a result, unconscious (and even sometimes conscious) bias means managers tend to hirepeople who are culturally similar to themselves. So, it stands to reason that a white, British male is more likely to recruit other white, British males when hiring for a tech role.

Sadly, even if someone from a different gender, culture or race gets the coveted job, they often experience an overwhelming sense of not belonging due to the lack of representation. And even the big organisations are failing when you see that Blacks and Hispanics only make up:

• 1%of Twitter’s engineering leadership
• 2% of Google’s team
• 2%of the techies at Facebook

It’s not good enough and companies need to start actively doing more to promote diversity instead of just paying it lip service.

3. Brexit

Although schools are trying to address the growing coding skills gap, there is concern that this development isn’t filtering through into the job market quickly enough. Since the UK’s decision to leave the EU, half of UK employers say the skills gap will worsen. That means the pressure is on to fill the void.

‘At a time when wage growth is so important to families in the UK, we must act fast to improve our home-grown digital skills if the UK is to stay at the forefront of the global digital economy post-Brexit,’ said Ashok Vaswani, CEO of Barclays UK.

So how can we bridge the coding skills gap?

The government and many prominent businesses are already making big commitments and great strides to address the skills gap in the UK. These include:

• Education: By opening up a broader spectrum of STEM subjects at primary school level, we will ensure that more children go on to pursue a career in the specialist topics this country needs in the workplace – regardless of gender.
• Discussion: Talking about and addressing the skills gap at major conferences will also help businesses focus on the problem and collectively find solutions. Find a front row seat at one of Cloud Direct’s latest talks or events here.
• Mentorship:The Institute of Coding is a £40 million initiative backed by the government, 60 universities, industry experts and businesses to deliver practical skills and mentorship to students and those already in relevant job roles.
• The cloud:Cloud technology has made the world a smaller place, for the better. It’s enabled individuals from different background and circumstances to enter the job marketplace and secure work they previously would have been excluded from. Not only can remote work be possible for anyone now, but remote training and development has never been easier to deliver.

Encouraging children to start their STEM journey early is the most effective and economic way to bridge the skills gaps long term. Whatever their race, gender, culture or socio-economic upbringing, we have a generation of future technology experts just waiting to be given an opportunity. So, are you onboard?

Bring your workplace into the future, today.

There’s a lot of talk about the advantages of cloud computing and the ‘Cloudonomics’ (they say a new word is born every day) of Azure, but let’s get down to brass tacks. Return on investment (ROI). What am I getting for my money?

A business that’s not afraid to grow, that’s what.

Big wins, low costs

A major advantage cited by many is that cloud computing platform like Microsoft Azure can be pay-as-you-go, with billing as an operational expenditure (Opex). This means you can spend your capital on innovating for the future and digitally transforming your business.

And, because you can accurately predict spending, this gives you the data to set up profit and expenditure targets. No more expecting the unexpected.

That’s not all. Yes, it used to be that the Cloud was just about Opex, but as larger organisations have started to get in on the action, new licensing models have emerged. For example, Reserved Instances, where customers can choose to commit to running virtual machines for one or three years to massively reduce the running costs. Organisations with the capital to invest will want to look at a Capex via Enterprise Agreements, where commitment is built-in up front.

Capex or Opex. Little or large. Cash rich or cash strapped. The variety of licensing options available from Microsoft on Azure means there is a model to suit every organisation’s unique setup.

 

Lean, mean budgeting machine

You’ll find yourself saving on month-to-month Opex payments because Azure is flexible. Unlike with the traditional data centre model, if you’ve only got the management in for the first hour of the working day, then you can spin up just enough capacity to match their needs. Then, when the rest of the staff arrive, that capacity is extended to match user numbers.

Also, you don’t need to keep everything spinning all the time. The average number of working hours in 2017 was about 162 per month out of a possible 730 hours. That’s over 75 percent downtime you’re paying for. Ouch. If you’re paying for over four times more uptime than you need, you want a pay-for-what-you-use system.

Then you can use what you gain here to invest in something businesses often neglect: disaster recovery.

Double or nothing

On premise back-up is the black hole of budgeting. You know you need business continuity processes, but the expense is hardly ever going to look ‘worth it’. It’s only when you experience disastrous data loss that you really see the benefit of backup. Without the right safety net preventing data corruption or loss, such an event could cost you your business.

Cloud backup is the first step for many businesses considering the cloud. It’s the ‘rainy-day fund’. It’s about being resilient. And, you don’t even need to get your senior IT team involved, because Azure makes backup easy to implement at a lower skill level, with automated processes freeing up IT resources and time.

Don’t double up your data centre when you can duplicate your data off-site, securely, with zero infrastructure or additional staffing investment.

The top-secret vault

Speaking of security, it only takes one bad egg to spoil the omelette. Identity and access management is made easy with Azure Active Directory. Keep threats that could take down your business at bay. Whether they come from outside or inside the organisation. Whether they’re malicious or just the result of bad practice. This will save you a headache, if nothing else.

‘Money can be exchanged for goods and services’

Yes, Homer Simpson is pretty quotable. But, beyond the backup and security provided by using a cloud computing platform, there’s a unique advantage to choosing Azure. With Azure, you gain access to a wide range of software-as-a-service applications, products and partnerships.

This is your chance to make valuable connections and access services through the Microsoft Partnership Program. When working with Cloud Direct, for example, your business benefits from the advanced services and broader scope of offerings provided by a Microsoft Azure Expert MSP, one of only 32 worldwide.

It’s not luck, cloud computing promotes business growth

‘Companies that adopted cloud services experienced…a 15.07 percent reduction in IT spending [and] a 19.63 percent increase in company growth’ according to a recent study by the market research company Vanson Bourne.

With the right foundation, you don’t need luck to grow your business. You have all the tools to hand, and you’ve positioned your company to be ready to scale. Cloud computing makes growth effortless. You can focus on getting more customers without having to slow down to let the business infrastructure catch up to your ambition.

Time is money

The ultimate return on investment? Time. Money comes and goes, but what you pay in time you’ll never get back. With Azure, you can save time otherwise spent on sourcing hardware and technicians, data centre power, cooling and maintenance, building and racking servers, disaster recovery and so much more.

Grow with Azure. See the returns. Get in touch with Cloud Direct today.

Flexible and remote working in the UK is a growing concept that is having a huge impact on the economy. The Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) revealed that a ‘work from anywhere’ culture could add an extra £11.5bn per year to the UK.

More than two-thirds of those currently unemployed or unable to work in an office would be happy to start working if given the opportunity to work flexibly. As a result, this could boost the economy by up to £78.5bn or 4.7% of the total UK GDP.

Since 2014, every employee in the UK has the legal right to request flexible working, provided they have worked for their employer for at least 26 weeks. According to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (DBEIS), ‘family-friendly policies and economic growth can go hand-in-hand. Flexible working really can help employers boost productivity and profits.’

There’s huge potential for the economy and for businesses that implement a flexible working approach. But how do you make flexible working work for your organisation?

The difference between flexible and remote working

Escaping the 9-to-5, a culture of closed doors, hours of meetings and stifling office hierarchies, is a dream many people crave. An estimated 14.1million workers want more flexibility in their work, according to The Guardian. But what do we mean when we say ‘flexible working’?

What is flexible working and what are the benefits?

Flexible working simply means any schedule that is outside of a traditional working pattern. It’s an approach to working that suits both the businesses needs as well as the employee. Think of it as an umbrella term for all the different types of work options now available to us, such as:

• Compressed hours, where you fit a week’s worth of hours into fewer, longer days.
• Flexitime, where you work a set amount of ‘core hours’ and are flexible with the hours you work before and after these set hours.
• Annualised hours, where your number of hours for the year are set but when you choose to work is up to you.

Is flexible working the same as remote working?

Put simply, no. Remote working is often an enabler of flexible working. It removes the commute to an office, which tends to eat up a big portion of any worker’s day. For some, remote working can be a couple of days a week, but for others it can be full time. In fact, some remote workers don’t even ‘meet’ their employers. Instead, they connect digitally from anywhere around the world.

Flexible working can include everything from remote working to flexible hours and alternating work schedules. Ultimately, it’s about moving away from the outdated 9-5 routine to give your employees more freedom to work when and where they are at their best.

Making flexible working work for your organisation

While there are practicalities to address when adopting flexible working, the key challenge is culture. For your employees, this level of freedom brings with it great responsibility. You need to trust that they won’t abuse the privilege or get lax on security. Just because they can work from home every now and then doesn’t mean they don’t need to follow company procedures.

To ensure that your employees embrace flexible working in a business-like manner, involve them in the decision-making process. Get their feedback and suggestions because they’re the ones on the front line – no one else will understand the day-to-day running quite like they do.

At Cloud Direct we run stakeholder workshops across your organisation to ensure that all employees are on board with the new way of working and that everyone’s needs, and concerns are addressed. Doing this at the beginning of the process generally avoids most of the usual teething problems further down the line.

Tools and storage to enable flexibility

Different business solutions have different strengths and weaknesses, and some will be more appropriate for certain business circumstances than others. You need to investigate the capabilities of any solution in detail to make sure it best matches the needs of your organisation.

Utilising Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

Working remotely means that employees need access to the same systems, tools and applications used on a day-to-day basis in your business. Fortunately, staying connected while working remotely is not only possible, it’s easy to do and gives employees a much-needed work-life balance.

This is where VDI can really support your flexible working needs. The Citrix VDI programme combines Citrix and Microsoft Azure to bring cloud users access to their desktops remotely from anywhere, on any device. This means employees will have access to the same software subscriptions and applications that they’re used to and it will look exactly the same as their normal desktop.

What tools do you need to maximise flexible collaboration?

It really comes down to listening to employees’ needs and ensuring that all tools are simple to use and easy to manage. There are a huge range of tools available but some of the key resources are:

• Office 365 – Your ‘office in the cloud’, providing a suite of professional tools enabling your team to get the work done, anywhere, anytime. Having access to the same tools as an in-house team means seamless work flow between employees and no down-time for new tool adoption and training.
• Microsoft 365 – Wherever your employees are based, they can stay connected with the rest of the organisation and with your external contacts. It also means that whenever they’re working, they can stay updated with all the business movements so you don’t have to spend additional time and resources keeping them in the loop.
• Dynamics 365 – Give your entire organisation a clearer view of how customers are interacting with your business so you can react with powerful analytics tools. All of this is accessible from any device, anywhere, so your remote employees don’t miss a thing.
• Hosted Telephony – Moving your communication system to the cloud means a professional and well-connected team. It also means you don’t compromise on the quality of your calls internally or externally. After all, keeping your employees connected is the lynch pin of making remote and flexible working work.

Cloud, hybrid or on premise?

It’s not a new conversation, but it is a hotly discussed one: the cloud and how you can utilise the many opportunities it provides a flexible business. 88% of organisations in the UK have already begun moving at least part of their infrastructure to the cloud. It’s quite common to use email, apps and some data storage in the cloud, but more sensitive data might still be kept on premise.

Price, flexibility and ease of management are still the three main considerations when comparing cloud-based solutions. There are several considerations when choosing how much of your business you will be moving to the cloud so don’t hesitate to discuss your business needs with one of Cloud Direct’s technical support staff.

Doing BYOD right

You’ve probably already got a Bring Your Own Device policy, so we won’t bore you explaining why it’s ideal. (Just in case you haven’t, see our eleven best practice tips for creating a BYOD policy). But are you doing BYOD right? Are you sure you haven’t just implemented a policy and then let your employees run wild?

When it comes to BYOD, you need to be rigorous. You need technology in place to ensure your business stays compliant. You need Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS). With Microsoft’s EMS, you can:

• Control identity and access so only approved users can access data.
• Manage all mobile devices from one central hub.
• Protect your sensitive data from vulnerabilities.
• Virtualise your desktops to deliver the same experience across mobile devices.
• Remote wipe devices in case of loss or theft.

With the right technology and process in place, you can ensure that your company data stays within the company network. That means your employees really can work from anywhere on any device and you can rest easy knowing your data is safe.

What’s next for your business?

The decision to implement a flexible working approach in your organisation isn’t a fast or easy one to make. There’s a lot to consider with regards to culture, systems, processes and tools. Taking the time to discuss this internally can help you reach the right conclusion.

But remember that you don’t need to make this decision alone. As with any big project, it’s about change management, and we can help you get it right. By working with our consultants, we’ll ensure your people, processes and technology are aligned for success.

For support and guidance on this transition, book a call with one of our experts to discuss your company’s needs and what it would take for you to adopt a flexible working approach.

For some enterprises, fear still lies in the cloud. As a result, many businesses fail to take advantage of what platforms like Azure can truly offer.

To combat these fears, we’ve debunked eight myths about Azure to show how it can help, not hinder, your business.

Myth 1: On-premise servers are more secure

First and foremost is security. Many businesses still believe that their data is more secure on a closed private server instead of the cloud. But private servers are often outdated, expensive to maintain and leave little wiggle room when disaster strikes.

If you’re hacked on an on-premise server, the chances of recovering data are slim. Our Azure Disaster Recovery as a Service solution, however, uses failsafe measures to ensure you can still access a backup copy of your cloud data from a different, unaffected server, outside of the affected data centre region. 

Myth 2: You lose control of your data in Azure

Nope. Not true. If anything, you have more control over your data in Azure, and can even customise it to suit your business needs.

This myth exists because, when you’re in the cloud, you offload server management to the cloud vendor. This means that they’re accountable for things like maintenance, compliance and security. Many businesses would rather control these aspects themselves for fear that a third party won’t manage them properly.

 

However, in-house management often leads to lax security and missed compliance. As an enterprise cloud platform, Azure is subject to rigorous third-party audits to ensure it is compliant with:

• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• ISO 27001
• HIPAA
• FedRAMP
• SOC 1 and SOC 2
• Country-specific standards, including Australia IRAP, UK G-Cloud and Singapore MTCS.

To name just a few of the compliance certifications Microsoft Azure holds.

Audits, such as those done by the British Standards Institute, verify Microsoft’s devotion to the strict security controls necessary to protect data. Pair this level of regulation with the high security standards here at Cloud Direct, and you can begin to understand the unparalleled levels of compliance and trust our partnership provides your business.

Myth 3: Azure isn’t the choice for rapidly growing businesses

Wrong. Azure has 54 data centre regions across 140 countries:

(Source: Microsoft blogs)

With so much choice, a business can expand into almost any new market across the globe and still have access to its data from a localised source.

Compared to AWS and Google Cloud Services, Azure has more data centre locations than any other public cloud vendor:

(Source: Atomia)

This gives businesses the opportunity to capitalise on fearless growth. Think globally, act locally.

Myth 4: We don’t have the skilled workers needed to run and optimise Azure

This myth was once true, but today it’s an outdated excuse to stop any business moving to the cloud. When you deploy to Azure, you often do so through an expert managed service provider (like us!) who takes care of the heavy lifting for you.

And once you’re up and running, we’re always on-hand to provide you with consultation and training to ensure you’re getting the most out of Azure. A skills shortage is no longer a good enough excuse.

Myth 5: Azure is riddled with hidden costs

Nope. This isn’t true, either. Azure has one cost: the cost of a subscription. It’s a pay-for-what-you-use licensing model with no up-front expenses. No need for server maintenance, hardware or software upgrades, standards compliance or money lost on server downtime.

Azure lets you scale and pay for only what you need. No more, no less, no hidden costs.

Myth 6: The main benefit of Azure is efficiency, not innovation

Gartner believe Azure is an industry leader in both IaaS and PaaS, rapidly catching up with leaders AWS in the race for public cloud market share.

(Source: Microsoft Azure)

The Microsoft team are constantly adding new and improved features to Azure to give users a more customisable, accessible experience on the platform. For a list of updates, visit here.

Myth 7: Once we go to Azure, we’re locked in with one vendor

On the contrary, RightScale found that 81 percent of enterprises operate using a multi-cloud strategy, the majority of whom use a hybrid cloud approach.

Azure isn’t a ‘my way or the highway’ platform. It’s designed to work between on-premises and cloud servers, letting enterprises move between the two as they see fit.

Myth 8: Azure doesn’t support open source

Many businesses have existing investments in software, and to ensure a good ROI, they require a cross-compatible platform. Enterprises will look at Azure and think that once they deploy, their existing systems won’t work anymore.

Here’s the thing, though: One in four Azure virtual machines run Linux. It’s a platform designed to give you choice. Whether it’s Java, Linux or PHP web applications, Azure supports open-source components, giving you the freedom to continue using platforms of your choice.

The truth is out there

There are a lot of misconceptions with cloud computing. And Azure is no exception. But the truth is, Azure is designed to provide your business with the tools to operate as you see fit.

We get it. The unknown is scary. But the cloud is no longer unknown. We’ve conducted the ordinance survey so you don’t have to. And with over 15 years of experience helping customers with cloud migrations under our belt, we know from experience that Azure is the perfect tool to help your business achieve fearless growth.

It’s built to allow innovation, to scale and to offload the legwork to a trusted partner. By doing so, you can focus on driving business growth and working towards a healthy return on investment.

If you’d like to learn more about what Azure can do for your business, speak with one of our Azure experts today.