As the coronavirus pandemic has erupted, evoking panic and fear across the globe, corporations are facing the reality of losing their workforce to illness or concerns of exposure to the virus. The ideas of “sheltering in place” and “social distancing” are rapidly becoming a reality. There is a push for federal workers to telework full time, and the business sector is likely not far behind. Though a widespread mandate has not yet been issued, it is expected in the next week, as The Securities and Exchange Commission recently became the first federal agency to clear 2,400 employees from its headquarters after learning that an employee might be infected.

The Teleworking Challenge

Businesses are now plagued with the dilemma of needing to maintain employee productivity without employees actually being at work. Business continuity is crucial for the bottom line and for maintaining dwindling shareholder value. Significant disruptions to productivity could be catastrophic.

While cloud adoption is growing, with 83% of enterprise workload projected to be in the cloud by the end of 2020, many organizations have not yet fully migrated to the cloud or updated infrastructure. Heavy or primary reliance on internal LANs for file storage and access allows permission control through AD or LDAP, but limits access to locally attached workstations only. While VPNs are a possible solution, they tend to be complex to set up, requiring significant IT support resources. VPNs are notoriously slow, resulting in frustration and reduced employee productivity.

 From Corporate LAN to Accessible File Repository – With No Migration

A solution such as Cornerstone MFT Server can give instant and seamless access to files stored on the corporate LAN. Implementing a Cornerstone server that is accessible from the internet provides a secure access point to network file servers without time-consuming and resource-intensive migration to a cloud service or other accessible on-site solution.

When paired with WebDrive File Access Client, a user’s drive mappings to LAN resources can be replicated, creating an identical user experience to directly accessing files while attached to the corporate network.  This eliminates costly user re-training and enables instant productivity around file access.

According to CIO magazine, on average, organizations use roughly five cloud file storage services. WebDrive can also provide a single point of access to all cloud services, reducing the time that it takes users to switch between and log into and out of different services. This is a very inexpensive way to improve the experience for your end users during a difficult and stressful time.

How Can We Help?

For some companies, teleworking is common and many employees already work remotely. But if you have no remote employees, this rapid, but necessary, switch to teleworking can be daunting. To help businesses navigate this difficult time, we are offering our Cornerstone MFT Solution at no cost for 30 days. Should your needs extend beyond 30 days, we are happy to work with you on flexible options to reduce up-front costs.

SRT is here to help the process go smoothly and remove the roadblocks to converting to a remote workforce. We are offering simple monthly payment options as well as discounted professional services to assist you in rapid adoption of Cornerstone MFT Server with WebDrive while your company navigates the confusion and tension of the coronavirus pandemic. Please contact mftsales@southrivertech.com if you would like to learn more.