To mitigate these risks, MSPs need to follow certain best practices to ensure proper employee offboarding for their clients. Before we discuss these best practices, let’s explore the potential risks caused by poor offboarding.

If you aren’t sure about how to carry out seamless and secure offboarding, check out our webinar “Seamless & Secure Employee Onboarding & Offboarding for Clients” to learn how you can overcome this issue with the right tools and documentation.

Risks Associated With Poor Offboarding

Let’s face it. Employees who depart the organizations they work for don’t always leave on the best of terms. A security survey of IT workers estimated that 88% of them would abscond with sensitive data if they get fired from their jobs. However, that isn’t the only risk associated with former employees.

• Continued Access to Data: There are many instances of former employees still having access to sensitive data in an organization. If your competitors got hold of this sensitive data, you could lose your competitive advantage in the market and face severe financial losses.
• Licensing Expenses: When you forget to cancel software licenses taken in the name of an exiting employee, you may be wasting your money on unnecessary licensing expenses.
• Loss of Productivity: When employees exit an organization, they might leave behind an unattended trail of work, which could result in a hit in productivity. This can be mitigated to a great extent if proper offboarding procedures are followed.

Best Practices for Seamless Offboarding

There are five key steps you can follow to ensure seamless offboarding of your clients’ employees and secure their IT environments the right way.

1. Share the Offboarding Process: The IT offboarding process should start immediately after the HR department shares the termination email with you. You can then send an email to the employee explaining the offboarding process. You need to have an offboarding checklist that outlines the exact steps to be followed during the offboarding process.
2. Data Backup and Data Transfer: Your next step involves securing your client’s critical data. Create backups of all critical files handled by the employee and transfer the information to their reporting manager. Before the employee’s exit, you also need to review the workstation and transfer the data stored in their SaaS applications.
3. Revoke Access & Change Login Details: To prevent misuse of all company-paid applications, you need to revoke the departing employee’s access to all cloud apps. For shared accesses, you also need to change the login details to prevent potential security breaches.
4. Retrieve All Assets: Once the data is backed up and accesses are revoked, you need to retrieve all assets from the employee before their exit. In addition to workstations, you may also have to gather access cards, cell phones, computer accessories, etc. Use a checklist to note down all the assets to be retrieved.
5. Notify Other Departments: The offboarding process is almost over at this stage. All that’s left is to notify the HR, finance and other departments of the successful completion of the IT offboarding. Share this information with the departing employee’s supervisor so as to provide complete visibility.

Use our “Employee Offboarding Infographic” to make sure you didn’t miss anything during the offboarding process.

Smooth Offboarding With IT Glue

A smooth exit is critical to ensure the security of your clients’ IT infrastructure. Proper documentation can go a long way towards making the process easy and seamless. IT Glue’s automated documentation platform can help you with seamless offboarding without disrupting other operations.

To know more about how IT Glue can help you with your offboarding, download our Onboarding and Offboarding Employees for Clients Checklist.

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Onboarding challenges have increased in magnitude with the onset of remote and hybrid work environments brought about by the pandemic. Things like face-to-face introductions, lunch meetings, in-person training, etc., have become almost non-existent in the new normal. This makes it harder for employers to welcome new employees and make them familiar and comfortable with their organization’s culture.

In this blog, we’ll explore some remote onboarding best practices that can help you ensure high retention and organizational success.

Download our onboarding infographic to learn the five simple steps of effective IT onboarding.

1. Start Before the New Hires Arrive at Work

Onboarding is a process that should ideally start before the new hires join the organization. Usually, there are a few days between the hiring of new employees and their first day of work. Make use of this time to identify their IT needs. Everything from hardware, security logins, software tools, personalized devices, etc., should be determined. This prevents any last-minute scrambling and confusion on the day the new hires start work.

2. Have a Systematic Orientation Program

Your onboarding process cannot be random. It should be consistent for all new hires throughout the organization. You need a systematic orientation program to make this possible. Your program should list out the tasks that need to be done before the new hires start, the tasks that need to be done on their first day, documentation guidelines, follow-up procedures and more. When you have a solid orientation program, you can avoid a disorganized and lengthy onboarding.

3. Set Up Hardware First, Then Focus on Software

The new hires should receive all necessary hardware, including computer, mouse, cable, USB sticks, phone, etc., on the very first day. Any delay in setting this up will slow down the employee training process and affect productivity from the get-go. Make sure the new hires are first provided with all the hardware required to perform their job. Even if the required software isn’t set up on time, you can still install it after delivering the hardware components.

4. Document the Process

Without documentation, you won’t have a frame of reference for future onboarding. You need an automated documentation tool that ensures seamless documentation of every step of the onboarding process. Besides, it will be much easier to share your training manuals, guidelines, SOPs, etc., with the help of a documentation tool.

To know how IT Glue can help document your onboarding, request a demo.

5. Set Up a Buddy System

Your new hires need to know the ins and outs of office operations during the first few days. You can use a buddy system to ensure efficient knowledge sharing with the new hires. You can assign an experienced employee to assist new hires with various activities like raising a ticket, accessing a software tool, etc. This reduces your workload and allows you to delegate minor tasks to other employees. This also allows the new hires to connect with other team members and get accustomed to your work culture.

6. Onboard on the First Day

Once everything from hardware devices to software login access has been set up, it is time to onboard the new hires on the first day. You need to provide them with all the necessary access and teach them how to use the tools securely. You can also share details about team lingo and terminology. The key here is to not overwhelm the new hires on the first day. Only provide them with the basic necessities they need to get started. You can share training guides and tutorials for other, more complex requirements.

7. Follow-up and Review

Your onboarding process doesn’t end with orientation on the first day. You need to regularly follow up for at least the first few weeks to ensure the new hires have a good grasp of what was imparted during onboarding. If they haven’t, you need to ensure that they do and then identify how you can improve your existing orientation program. These reviews are vital to avoid future mistakes and make the onboarding process more effective.

How IT Glue Can Help

IT Glue is a leading cloud-based software company that understands the importance of employee onboarding. Our SOC 2-compliant documentation platform can help you document your onboarding process and ensure consistency. IT Glue features an immutable audit trail, multifactor authentication and next-generation password management engine — all of which are fully integrated and linked with all your documentation.

To know more about how to onboard/offboard employees effectively, download our checklist.

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There is a possibility that a great deal of your employees’ access may be unknown to your IT department. This access could be hosted publicly and could present a data security risk to your company. To overcome this challenge, you need to understand the risks inherent in today’s remote offboarding process and identify ways to mitigate them.

We’ll explore this in detail in this blog, but before that, check out this employee offboarding checklist to make sure you’ve covered all the bases before an employee leaves the company.

Potential Security Risks

Did you know that 88% of IT workers stated they would take sensitive company information with them if they were fired from their jobs? Data theft is one of the common consequences of poor offboarding. However, this is just one of the many possible security risks associated with poor offboarding. Here’s a list of common security issues that could arise when an employee leaves an organization.

• Data Loss: This is the most serious and most obvious issue you could encounter. There have been multiple data security incidents worldwide attributable to disgruntled employees. Besides stealing data, disgruntled employees could also delete or damage data before leaving. Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report estimated that 40% of employees who have stolen company data won’t hesitate to use it in their next jobs. Losing critical information to a competitor could make you lose your competitive edge.
• Compliance Violations: When former employees leak your confidential information online, it could lead to compliance violations. Regulatory compliance laws have strict rules regarding data security, especially sensitive information regarding a company’s customers. When this data is leaked, it is likely to attract heavy fines and penalties. For instance, GDPR may levy fines up to 4% of your global turnover.
• Loss of Reputation: When a company is faced with a data breach or compliance violation, it results in loss of reputation. Customers might feel that their personal data is not properly protected by the company and may defect to competitors. There is also a greater possibility of a loss of future business. A simple offboarding process, when done poorly, can lead to major consequences.
• Wasteful Spending on Unused Licenses: While this may not be as serious as data loss, it could also result in massive financial losses if overlooked for a considerably long time. Employees often require a variety of software to do their jobs. When unused licenses are kept active even after an employee leaves the company, they accumulate over time and ultimately lead to financial loss.
• Productivity Loss: Employees who leave an organization take their knowledge with them. If your critical data is not properly documented, it could result in productivity loss. Also, there is a huge possibility of miscommunication when the information is not clear, which then leads to inefficient workflows.

How to Mitigate These Risks

While security threats are inevitable in today’s scenario, mitigating them is well within our hands. This can be done simply by implementing a few steps in your offboarding process. Here are a few strategies you can implement to avoid most security risks.

Revoke Access & Reset Passwords During the Offboarding

The first major step you need to take is to revoke the employee’s access to all critical files, applications and services. Before you revoke access, make sure you have made backup copies of the files stored in the employee’s computer and emails. If the employee has access to any SaaS applications in your network, you need to revoke the access or disable the account. Passwords shared for various services need to be reset instantly. Preventing external access following an employee’s exit is a critical part of your onboarding process.

Move Data to Centralized Cloud Applications

By moving critical data to a centralized cloud storage application, you can restrict access only to key people in your organization. You can set permissions accordingly and make sure no one outside the company can view the data by any means.

Conduct an Exit Interview

Conducting an IT exit interview for all departing employees is a must. This can help identify red flags in the employee’s demeanor that can prevent trouble in the future. If identified, the entire offboarding process and data access should be double-checked. You can also quiz the employee about various things like account access, critical data, company credit card, etc.

Have Documented Processes

Your offboarding process cannot be random and arbitrary. Make sure you have documented processes at every step and enact them during the offboarding process. This brings a much-needed structure to your offboarding process. When you have documented steps, you won’t miss out on anything that may cause security issues. This goes a long way towards mitigating various threats that may arise out of this process.

To Sum Up

A smooth exit is critical to ensure the security of your IT infrastructure. When you have documented the entire process, it makes offboarding easy and secure. It also ensures that your other operations are not disrupted by the exit of an employee.

To know how IT Glue can help with employee offboarding, request a free demo today!

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However, remote work comes with its own set of challenges. One of the primary concerns that companies have about distributed workforces is onboarding. Even before the pandemic, it was always a complicated and time-consuming process. Proper onboarding needs coordination between different departments, getting necessary approvals, collating a list of essential software, providing necessary permissions, getting systems ready, mapping new endpoints to the network servers and much more. If that wasn’t hard enough, remote work makes the process even more challenging.

Remote Work Challenges

There are multiple challenges associated with remote work, such as:

• Unfamiliarity with new tools and/or processes
  Suddenly shifting from on-site work to a remote environment is not easy. Many new tools and processes are needed to collaborate with co-workers and keep work on track. When the pandemic hit initially, IT professionals had to learn about these new tools and processes almost overnight and IT leaders all over the world struggled to bridge this gap across their companies.
• Coordination between different teams
  Ensuring a seamless flow of information between departments is paramount. Earlier, it was easier to walk up to the HR coordinator or the reporting manager to collect details about new hires’ software and tool requirements. However, remote work environments have raised the risk of miscommunication or misunderstandings between departments.
• Making systems available
  This step needs to begin even before the first day of onboarding. Systems must be installed with all the necessary tools and software, checked for proper functioning and shipped to the employees’ residences before their start date. A delay in this can negatively affect productivity, onboarding experience, perception of the company culture and employee retention.
• Issues with IT setup
  Once an employee starts working, the first step is the IT setup. However, remote work tends to make everything from creating login IDs and passwords for all the apps to securely mapping the system to the network, more difficult. Factors such as having multiple people involved (different managers need to give access to various tools), time zone differences, stakeholder availability, etc., can play a significant role in delaying the process.
• Improper knowledge transfer
  The last step to IT onboarding is making new hires familiar with the tools and apps they would use frequently. A thorough session explaining the security norms the company follows is also essential. But due to limited visibility, tracking whether an employee is adhering to security norms is hard. It leads to a high risk of security breaches and misuse of tools and apps.

Bad Onboarding Is Detrimental

If you still aren’t convinced about the importance of proper onboarding, take a look at these statistics:
• Only 12% of employees strongly agree that their organization does a great job of onboarding new employees.
• New employees with a good onboarding experience are 18 times more committed to their employer.
• Almost 80% of employees said onboarding was an “important moment at work.”

To Sum Up

Structured onboarding is crucial because it familiarizes employees with their roles, the company in general and the do’s/don’ts. It plays a vital role in ensuring that employees feel valued and are committed to their employer’s success.

Investing in tools like IT Glue can help improve the overall IT onboarding process. IT Glue helps companies upgrade from a low/medium onboarding maturity level to high maturity by providing a road map that includes all the necessary documentation required at the time of onboarding.

Feel free to download our “Onboarding and Offboarding Employees for Clients Checklist.” It will show you the ins and outs of what needs to be done when onboarding or offboarding an employee in your clients’ organizations.

Watch our onboarding/offboarding webinar to obtain a roadmap that includes all the documentation required at the time of onboarding or offboarding.

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Although cyberthreats are inevitable in this digital world, you don’t always have to live in constant fear of them. With the right cybersecurity preparations, you can overcome various threats and significantly minimize the chance of security incidents in your clients’ organizations.

In this blog, we’ll check out some of the best security preparation strategies you can incorporate in your organization to ensure a smooth return to office.

Download our COVID-19-Era Transformation Checklist

Identify and Fill Technology Gaps

Technology is always evolving and you need to keep up as well. An organization that still relies solely on legal solutions for security is the perfect target for cybercriminals since there are plenty of loopholes to exploit. You need to constantly review your security solution and fill the technology gaps without fail.

Key IT functions, such as remote monitoring of assets, patching, data backup, etc., must be handled by sophisticated tools that can proactively prevent a security incident. This is the main reason why tech investments have skyrocketed since the pandemic. The accelerated digital adoption and transition to a hybrid workforce has made organizations realize the importance of technology. Studies show that 73% of IT leaders substantially increased their data security investments in 2020. This trend is likely to continue over the next few years, so don’t be left behind.

Incorporate a Zero Trust Approach

Under the Zero Trust approach, no individual, device or application can be trusted by default even if it is part of an internal or external network. Remote work is here to stay, which means critical business data will be accessed by employees from different locations. You need to make sure only the right users have access to critical data. This begins with defining what critical data is, micro-segmenting users and then assigning permissions to them. Only when all the parameters align correctly will a user have access to critical data. By limiting access, you can significantly prevent various kinds of cyberthreats, both internal and external.

Security Processes to Promote Resilience

When the pandemic started, most companies didn’t have the right infrastructure to support remote work. As a result, unexpected issues popped up from everywhere. The same can be expected when organizations return to work after a prolonged period. These issues can be mitigated if you incorporate the following complementary security processes:

• BDR Testing – Sometimes, a security incident cannot be avoided, even after meticulous preparation. In such cases, a business must bounce back quickly if it has to win back the trust of its customers. This is possible only if you have a strong business continuity and disaster recovery solution. You need to periodically test the solution to identify its vulnerabilities before an actual data loss incident happens.
• Incident Response Protocols – Every organization should have a clear protocol about what to do during a major cybersecurity incident. This should outline clear details regarding who has to be contacted, what the fail-safe measures are, how to contain the breach within a limited segment, etc.
• Monitoring Assets – With the rise in remote work, there is also a proportional rise in employees using their personal devices for office work. This introduces a new range of vulnerabilities to an organization’s critical data. You need to expand monitoring to make sure non-company assets are not accessing your critical data. Solutions like security information and event management (SIEM) can help expand monitoring and identify novel threats.

Training Your Employees

Insider threats have increased 47% in the last two years, and the only way to reduce them is through proper awareness training. Unwitting employees often fall prey to phishing or social engineering scams, most of which are easily avoidable. Employees are the first line of defense against security threats in any organization, and they must be educated accordingly.

Regular communication regarding the different types of evolving cyberthreats is essential. It is also necessary to identify high-risk individuals who could easily fall victim to an attack. You can do this by simulating fake social engineering attacks to identify these individuals and provide them with specialized training.

When it comes to training, you need to take advantage of the features of sophisticated tools in the market. For instance, tools like MyGlue can add an extra layer of security by managing your passwords and facilitating process documentation. You can also use the document-sharing features in IT Glue to share important checklists and “How To” guides in an efficient manner.

To Sum Up

Cybersecurity preparations are a must if you plan on returning to the office anytime soon. When incorporating security strategies, make sure you develop plans for a hybrid workforce that has the flexibility to operate from anywhere. Use the tips in this article as a guideline to boost your security posture and build a resilient defense against various threats.

To know more about how IT Glue can help you with your COVID-era recovery, sign up for a free demo.

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In the future, companies will be unable to function effectively without a remote or hybrid workforce model in place of their on-site structure. This transition to remote work comes with its own technological requirements and MSPs are going to be at the forefront of facilitating this change.

In this blog, we will discuss some of the best practices and factors you need to consider when scaling your remote workforce.

Refining Your Talent

Moving to a remote work environment comes with its own set of challenges for everyone involved. While IT technicians have to work on everything from cybersecurity to communication requirements, employees have to learn new things and become more flexible in managing their work. In this scenario, all organizations, including MSPs, have to promote new skills among their staff.

Accelerated technology adoption requires the usage of new software tools that might require special onboarding and training. Have you figured out a way to train and onboard all your staff? Questions like these need to be answered before you can scale your entire workforce to a remote model.

Investing in the right tools is critical if you wish to facilitate knowledge sharing among your staff. For instance, IT Glue’s automated documentation allows the collection and sharing of critical data across the organization. This can facilitate knowledge sharing and boost skills across the organization.

Check out our webinar: On the Go! A hybrid approach to working – Get remote teams going

Diversifying New Offerings

Successfully scaling a business requires diversifying its existing service lineup with new services, and this applies to MSPs as well. With the rise in new technology requirements across the globe, there is no shortage of ideas when it comes to new offerings. Security, backup and compliance are all great options for MSPs since clients are likely to have high requirements for these offerings in a remote work environment.

While diversifying the service lineup is a great opportunity, it is also likely to create new challenges for MSPs that are not ready to invest in new offerings. A recent study has shown that 91% of organizations would consider changing their IT service providers if their cybersecurity needs are not met. MSPs that can’t keep up will witness high churn in the coming days. That’s why it is imperative to equip yourself with new offerings like antivirus solutions, cloud backup, backup and disaster recovery, and more to meet the evolving needs of your customers.

Creating a Positive Work Culture

Employees are the lifeblood of an organization, and no company has ever made it to the top without their support. Organizations need to create a work culture that is positive and sustainable. In times of remote work, this could pose a challenge since it might be difficult for team members to socialize over video calls. In the long run, this could also affect team-building efforts and hamper your growth.

Face-to-face meetings are no longer possible in a workplace. However, it is possible for organizations to get creative with their team-building efforts and make it work. For instance, a weekly coffee chat where you discuss something other than work with your team is not a bad idea. You need to instill a sense of belongingness in each team member in order to create a strong and sustainable work culture in your organization. Even during times of crisis, you can rely on your workforce if they take pride in their work and love being a part of your organization.

Boosting Efficiency

Efficiency is vital if you want to serve more clients or help expand your clients’ business. Boosting your business efficiency requires identifying your current business priorities, your resources, pain points, bottlenecks, etc. Once you have identified everything, watch out for tasks that you can automate to free up your technicians’ time. When making new investments, look for solutions that have automation capabilities.

By eliminating waste and boosting efficiency, you can free up your resources and focus on critical tasks that matter. This can also help you serve your existing clients better and add new clients without any difficulty.

Scaling for Existing Customers

It is much easier to sell to your existing customers than to add new customers. By developing strong relationships with your clients, you can pitch new services and upsell or cross-sell to them. This may not be possible if your existing clients are not satisfied with you. You need to regularly measure their customer satisfaction score to identify whether you are on the right track when it comes to managing customer relationships.

To manage expectations from your customers, your SLAs should clearly outline what can be expected from you. Also, develop a system to manage feedback from your clients. For instance, a quarterly business review (QBR) can help you identify what your customers need from you and fill in the gaps if required.

Wrapping Up

Scaling your business in a remote or hybrid work environment is by no means an easy feat. However, it is totally achievable if you are willing to put some effort into it. You can follow the best practices listed here to ensure a seamless transition. Remember, it all comes down to managing your workforce, providing new offerings, creating the right work culture and managing your client expectations. If you can manage all that, you are on your way to successfully scaling your remote workforce.

To know more about what IT Glue can do to help you scale your business, sign up for a free demo.

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Establishing channels for information to flow smoothly has never been more vital, and technology has proven to be an effective bridge for the gap. Whether the information flowing is in the form of documents, video streams or support tickets, the continued flow of information needs a functional channel for this to happen. Your organization might use Zoom for meetings, Slack for instant messaging, and Outlook for mass communication, but how are you connecting with clients?

Here are 3 ways MyGlue is the perfect solution.

Share Documentation

So, you want to send documents such as Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), easy troubleshooting steps, or maybe even reports elaborating on the state of the client’s IT infrastructure. Sending these through email ensures they’ll get lost, and other web-based office platforms for storing documents have been described as “a black hole where documents are uploaded and then die.”

MyGlue makes things easy. Clients can reference SOPs and other documentation you’ve created in IT Glue, enabling the client to take the initial troubleshooting steps. If a document is updated on your end, those changes will automatically be reflected on the client side. This means that the most up-to-date information is always being used, reinforces your MSPs value, and demonstrates that you won’t hold their data hostage.

Work Together

MyGlue establishes a mutually beneficial relationship between your MSP and a client. 2-way syncing ensures updates to IT infrastructure documentation can be made by either the client or your MSP. This is especially useful if you’re co-managing an IT environment with a client’s internal IT contact, but also if you just want your main point of contact (such as the office manager or CFO) to always have the latest information about their IT infrastructure.

MyGlue functions as a portal and resource for clients to work with your MSP. It also supports the continuity of your MSP and your client’s business if someone from either team leaves the company. Information is saved and easily retrieved, and the latest information can be easily accessed by both your client and your MSP.

Password Management

Remote work has become commonplace, and when employees aren’t working within secured work environments, it’s even more important to enforce security best practices. Sharing passwords through Slack or email just doesn’t cut it anymore. MyGlue offers the same ironclad security measures of IT Glue, ensuring passwords are securely stored, accessed and shared.

MyGlue’s password management features have expanded since its release. With the Chrome Extension and MyGlue mobile app, accessing passwords when you need them is streamlined. Our latest feature release, Password Folder Security, means that both your MSP and your clients can create folders for passwords, and define permissions for who has access to the passwords in the folder. Permissions for a folder will cascade down to individual passwords. If a new password is added to the folder it automatically adopts the permissions set for the folder. This can be done at the end user level or your MSP can collaborate on password management. Organizing passwords based on specific functions, roles, teams or people is now as easy as ever. We’ve even added host-proof hosting and SSO for MyGlue, to boost password security even further.

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Here are some thoughts to get you started.

Solutions to Problems You Never Knew You Had

Let’s say you’re faced with an unusual situation, say, a complete lack of toilet paper in the stores. How do you solve that? Well, either a) you drive all over town swiping squares from Mickey D’s and buying up every roll you can find, or b) you find ways to use less toilet paper. For example, if you install a Japanese toilet, you will cut your toilet paper usage substantially. But you might not think about that until you have a toilet paper shortage.

Now apply that logic to your small business customers, or even your own business. What problems have you or your clients just realized that you have? Maybe it was a lack of preparedness for remote work. Maybe it is the reliance on on-prem solutions that only work when people are actually on premises. Maybe your clients are all of a sudden facing a cash flow crunch, and now realize they didn’t pay enough attention to cash flow, or their sales operation. There’s a lot of problems people are just not startnig to realize that they have.

Better Solutions to Problems You Knew You Had

Let’s say your home is full of clutter. But you spent a lot of time at the office and like to get outside on the weekends, so the clutter didn’t matter. But now you’re working from home and all that clutter suddenly becomes impossible to ignore. So you tidy up. And then you realize how much more you like being home because it’s tidy now. You always knew it was a problem, but you could avoid dealing with it, so you avoided dealing with it.

For a lot of MSPs, documentation fits that description to a T. Or maybe it’s your sales process. For your clients, maybe it’s something else, like compliance, or disaster recovery, or cyber-insurance. The COVID-19 crisis might be exposing areas of weakness that previously did not warrant attention, but now have become much more important to shore up. For your clients, what are those?

Solutions to New Problems

New problems arise all the time, and we find solutions to those problems. The current situation is no different. Now is the time to have conversations with all of your clients and get a feel for what new problems they might be facing, and start thinking about how you might be able to address those problems. For a restaurant or a retail store, being told that you have to shut down for two weeks would be a new problem, one you never really thought you’d have, but which is now a real-world scenario.

If you’re in regular communication with your clients, you are in a better position to understand what new problems they face. This is what you do—you find solutions for your clients, add value to their business, and by doing that you’re able to earn your living. The reality is that the problems they faced a few months ago might not be the biggest problems they face today. Understanding those changes, and whether or not these problems will persist after the current crisis fades, will put you in the driver’s seat.

A Bright New Day

Not everybody has the luxury of thinking about the future in this way. A lot of SMBs, both in IT and who buy IT services, are staring down short term revenue uncertainty, and immediate cash flow challenges. If you are in a more favorable position, honestly, you owe it to your business and your employees to start thinking about how the current crisis will change the MSP industry.

This crisis will be over. When it ends and we all step outside our homes and breath in fresh air again, companies will be looking to make up for lost time. That’s going to orient them towards growth. The better the understanding you have of what that growth will look like, the better positioned you’ll be to strengthen your business and get back on track more quickly than if you neglect to think about the post-corona world.

The post Life Changes Fast: How to Think About the Post-Corona World appeared first on IT Glue.

Communication is Key

The biggest difference between working remotely and working on site is communication within your team. In most cases, your sales team and service desk work with systems that they can take home with them. If not, well that’s the first thing to think about changing.

Inter-team communication can’t just be over email. Teams or Slack or anything else in that style are the most effective ways to keep communication flowing in real time. These tools have become popular specifically because they help keep your inbox less cluttered. Replace shoulder-tapping with virtual shoulder-tapping.

Task Management

How does your team manage its work? Again, something like sales is normally very well-instrumented so you know if your sales folks are making their calls. But a SaaS task manager – we favor Asana at IT Glue but there’s a lot of them out there – can help to keep everybody else on point, and provide managers with the needed visibility into the day-to-day activities of their teams.

Documentation

No doubt we were going to talk about documentation here. Using a SaaS solution allows your team to do its thing from anywhere, with full access to all of the documentation, just as easily as if they were in the office. If you’re relying on an on-prem solution, it’s time to reconsider that, because honestly, you’re going to put your team’s health at risk, for no good reason. IT Glue is the only proven documentation solution that allows your team to be awesome no matter where they are.

Meetings

The same tools you use for internal comms – Teams, Slack, etc. – can be used for internal calls and meetings. Zoom, GoToMeeting are others that allow you to host meetings with clients, too, so there’s no excuse not to do QBRs.

Right now, there’s not that many companies doing a full-on remote work program, but that could change pretty quickly. So it’s worth taking a look at your systems today in order to get with any learning curves you might encounter. That way, when you need to implement remote work, you’re ready.

What you’ll probably find is that it’s pretty efficient. If you think about your stack, you probably have some old fashioned stuff in there. It makes sense that a big shift towards remote work will be baked into normal business practice once people see these advantages.

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Remote Work

Social isolation has entered our lexicon, and remote work is one of the best ways to make it happen. You don’t want anybody on your team to get sick, let alone your entire team, so implement a remote work plan. There’s no time like today to start setting your team up for remote work, if you’ve not done that already. Cloud-based apps are essential to remote work. If you’re stuck doing the on-prem thing, you’re putting your employees, and your business, at risk for no reason. Just make sure you’re using tools that are set up for 2FA, because you have less control over the security of the networks your employees are logging in from than the ones in your office.

Inoculate Against Business Disruption

If things get worse, don’t be surprised to see business disruption. There are two things you’ll want to think about here. One is that you want to work with your clients to ensure that both you and they are operating at the highest level of efficiency. Your margins are basically a cushion against any sort of slowdown—control your costs by focusing on efficiency, and make sure that you’re delivering value for your clients to help them be at their best. You can boost your margins by running the most efficient service desk possible, where you’ve all but eliminated the time it takes for your team members to find the information they need to do their jobs.

The second thing worth thinking about is making sure you’re not seen as a line item by your clients. This means communicating your value—you’re not a cost center but playing an important role as the technology advisor. In 2020, it’s hard to run anything bigger than a shoe shine stand without being dependent on technology, but there are a lot of businesses – small and large – that haven’t quite built that reality into how they perceive IT.

Establish regular communication with your clients by scheduling a regular business review cadence—quarterly is the norm. This is especially important during times of crisis – being there both on a professional and human level is something that makes an impression. Make sure they know you’re not a line item to be cut, but a critical part of their business. Discuss with them how you can help them get through this crisis, and what steps you can help them take to minimize disruption to their business.

Your Role is More Important than Ever

Don’t use the COVID crisis as a reason to ramp up your sales pitches. That’s not cool. But business is going to change because of this, and some of these changes are going to be permanent. Remote work is likely here to stay, for example. When we get through the crisis your clients are going to revisit a lot of things about their business, such as getting more into the cloud. So talk to them about cloud backup, or other solutions that can help them use this crisis as a pathway to implementing a more future-forward approach to their businesses. So take the time now to think about what the future of your clients’ businesses will look like, and what you can do to help get them there.

Key Takeaways

Regardless of where the coronavirus crisis goes from here, one thing is certain, that business will change as a result of what we’re seeing. So now more than ever it’s time to protect your employees with a remote work plan, and keep an open dialog with your clients so that you can work with them to help manage the shifts in their business, whether that’s moving to more of a cloud-based infrastructure or anything else.

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