When most people talk about remote working today, they are really talking about working from home. And of course, that is what many people are currently doing. What’s interesting is that, even before we entered the pandemic situation, Gartner research suggested that “By 2030, the demand for remote work will increase by 30% due to Generation Z fully entering the workforce.

However, the model needs to be flexible—the ability to “work from wherever,” rather than just home, is key. The challenge for CIOs is that most current workplace constructs cannot be fully scaled to support a flexible remote- working model.

The senior leadership is critical to ensuring that an effective remote-working model is created. For the CIO these six factors are required for an employee to be able to effectively work remotely.

1. A scalable network enabled by automation, such as software-defined networking (SDN) and virtualized network services (VNS), that can flex to support new usage patterns with work shifting outside of offices and enable application availability prioritization
2. Cloud-ready applications for collaboration, core operations and support
3. Strong and secure mobile connectivity to access those applications, as well as the corporate WAN (for those that are not cloud-enabled)
4. End-to-end monitoring of network performance to maintain control, usability and security
5. Zero-trust security implementation that strengthens the protection of sensitive information outside of physical offices
6. A resilient end-user support model and supply chain that can deal with spikes in teleworker demand, both in terms of calls for help and the need for laptops, tablets or other mobile devices

Secondly, the Corporate boardrooms across the world are mapping strategies to bolster production in a short time. They feel that is possible only by bringing in tectonic shifts in   technologies. What would be those technologies? Do we think that Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain and several other technologies in hibernation, which the human ingenuity would evolve sooner or later as a bye product of the present predicament, would solve the problem? These technologies are already in vogue and the present production processes are to a large extent, are dependent on these cutting edge technologies. Post Covid-19 may accelerate the deployment of these technologies and a lot more.

The most optimistic assessment that I heard about the pandemic was that there is a scramble for evolving technologies in all business sectors,  particularly in the manufacturing, that can make good whatever that has been lost. In order to scale up production, they feel some of the cutting edge technologies should be deployed.

Even with the global economy reeling from a pandemic-induced recession and dozens of businesses filing for bankruptcy, tech’s largest companies — still wildly profitable and flush with billions of dollars from years of corporate dominance — are deliberately laying the groundwork for a future where they will be bigger and more powerful than ever.

I’ve always believed that in times of economic downturn, the right thing to do is keep investing in building the future,” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said. “When the world changes quickly, people have new needs, and that means there are more new things to build.