Alex Bratton is the CEO and chief geek at Lextech Global Services and LexGo Work.
COVID-19 has forced in weeks what enterprises have been struggling to figure out for years — how do we shift to distributed organizations that function with employees working from anywhere? Distributed work has become an immediate requirement as governments, schools, and businesses have had to adapt overnight to a new world.
Mention “mobile apps” a month ago and most people, even business executives, summoned up images of tablets, smartphones, and consumer driven online interfaces. The revolution now in the world of mobile is creating connected organizations that can function with teams anywhere— a truly mobile workforce powered by technology.
Employers and enterprises who master this new world of work will be many steps ahead for the future.
Level the Playing Field
Rather than simply turning paper forms into digital versions, technology has the opportunity to connect people and simplify business processes, advised Alex Bratton of Lextech. “I am intensely focused on getting the word ‘remote’ out of the vocabulary and driving the culture change to embrace the ‘distributed’ and ‘connected’ nature of business,” he said.
Business leaders should not only take full advantage of online technology, like video conferencing for meetings, but also explore how to change the business processes of today to leverage the tools available. Forced distancing of teams and customers means needing a new look at how the business functions. Regular all hands video-chats, sharing recorded video messages, or standing up new text chat tools are the basics for enhancing a sense of company solidarity and to more quickly identify and resolve issues.
The same technology-based interactions can enable distributed workers to stay connected in their immediate teams. For example, sales managers can use technology to actively coach field sales reps while looking at shared performance information.
The New Reality
If business leaders thought the world was going fast before, the new reality is that it has intensified. “The pace of change just skyrocketed. Information, such as sales forecasts, that used to change weekly or monthly may now change every hour. To survive in this climate, new tools, processes, and infrastructure are mandatory to support the needs of real time decision making,” encouraged Bratton.
The urgency of looking to technology to support building inclusive, connected organizations has risen greatly. The shrewd company will rapidly explore technology options to power its future.
