Making the most out of location-less

In 2020, even old school managers discovered what Gen Mobile knew all along: work from home – or work from anywhere – doesn’t mean lower productivity. In fact, it can mean just the opposite. Absent commuting time and even prescriptive 9-5 hours, productivity can  skyrocket – if companies get the basics right. Optus Enterprise Managing Director, Chris Mitchell, explains.

Optus has seen a not-so-subtle shift in our customers’ mobility use. CBDs are seeing less activity as populations have shifted to our suburbs and even regions.

This probably doesn’t surprise you – and maybe you are even reading this from the comfort of your own home office. While some industries, like agriculture, mining and manufacturing, are tethered to a physical location, they will still benefit from the technologies to improve away-from-a-desk work efforts.

Optus stepped in to help many of our clients with this shift last year. While we have gone back to ‘more normal’ working rhythms,  the new normal has many of us spending at least a few days a week in the office.  And, in reality, people aren’t just migrating between work and home, but also to cafes, from client sites, and even while on holiday. So, companies must ensure that they support productivity and collaboration from anywhere.

So what’s the most powerful tool you can give your employees in a work-from-anywhere world?  The mobile phone, of course. Ensuring your workforce is equipped with the latest devices is one of the smartest investments a company can make. In addition to the obvious – being used to speak to clients and colleagues – mobiles and tablets can provide access to applications that foster collaboration, provide guidance and deliver messages.

For companies who embrace locationless, a secure, agile Software Defined Network (SDN) is vital. End-to-end visibility across all network points becomes tricky when those network points are everywhere. All companies would benefit from a review of how they are managing their cloud-based solutions – and how they can improve.

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning present better tools to beef up security, increase organisational agility, deliver actionable insights and improve customer engagement. Embracing such tools allows the new breed of SDNs to automate the detection of issues, sometimes before they even happen and deliver – and in some cases even implement – real time solutions.

While each business will have different needs and requirements, integrated connectivity solution is at the heart of an effective location-less workplace solution.  And for this reason, being Optus – with our world-class 4G network, NBIoT, satellite, and our super-fast 5G network – positions us well to help clients create a unified employee experience with connectivity that just works and meets an every changing set of business needs.