Today, with people increasingly working away from their main offices, enabling them to remain connected is crucial to preserve the momentum of the business. Technology that helps remote workers connect, otherwise called remote working tools, simplifies the management of dispersed businesses.

A head popping out of a cabin calling out to team mates to assemble at the conference room in half an hour, was how meetings were announced when project members sat within shouting distance. Today, with the management head probably at the airport, the sales associate driving to a client’s office and other team members spread across cities, a call from a cabin would be meaningless. Managing teams in today’s globalised business environment has changed drastically with teams spread across geographies. And remote working tools enable employees to complete their work from locations other than their office base.

Working remotely – a rewarding experience
Remote working tools provide the three C’s – connection,communication and collaboration among colleagues, teams and peers. But, what perks does such ‘connectivity’ bring to the business? Lower operational costs, sidestepping geographical and time barriers, improved productivity, increased employee satisfaction and hence higher retention are some advantages of adopting remote working technology.
Operate in ‘saving mode’: Remote working technology is transforming the way businesses are conducted and operated, enhancing revenue growth and dramatically reducing operational costs. “Many employers are finding it more appealing to have remote workers as they reduce overheads. An organisation can save on space, heating/cooling and electricity costs. Some organisations like universities, have a growing number of people on-site. Departments that want to expand but do not have the space can substantially benefit from people working off-site. Savings in this area can be channelled into the improvement of other facilities,” says Navin Goel, vice-president (engineering), Aurigo Software Technologies.
Kiran Datar, managing director, Cisco WebEx, says: “Effective sales organisations that leverage Web applications (remote working technology) across essential functional areas are finding that they can significantly improve operational efficiencies at a much lower cost. Besides, real-time collaboration solutions offer marketing teams effective and efficient ways to improve both the quality and quantity of their outbound communication without increasing costs. Further, R&D and manufacturing operations are the foundation of successful global organisations. Each group can leverage the benefits of frequent Web meetings (virtual meetings) to create operational efficiencies and cost reductions.”
A Mohali-based Indian business that develops solutions for the retail, apparel, footwear, pharmaceutical, FMCG, electronics and telecommunication verticals agrees about the cost advantage that the WebEx Meeting Centre offers users. This remote working tool, which enables people to meet online in real-time, helped the organisation save Rs 3 lakh every month, which would have otherwise been spent on employing 30 sales professionals to tap prospective customers in the market. The tool also helped the firm generate the same number of leads as the additional sales personnel would have. The overall RoI (return on investment) with this remote working tool was estimated to be 250 per cent.

Overcome geographical and time barriers: Remote working technologies also help overcome geographical and time barriers. Take the case of virtual meetings, for instance. This allows the sales team to schedule a Web demo with customers at short notice, resulting in significant reduction in sales cycles, and hence saves time. It allows you to simultaneously involve multiple subject matter experts spread across geographies during a demo through virtual meetings, overcoming geographical barriers.Superchooha, a Mumbai-based communications firm, in which the two co-founders worked from different cities, was supported by remote working tools. Google Docs and a project management tool helped the duo cross time and geographical hurdles. “Information and the tasks assigned used to get lost in mails; we had tons of papers on the notice board to remind us of stuff. Information flow was never seamless, especially since we were in different geographies. We initially used Google Docs and Google Sites for document management. But as the team size increased, we needed a complete tool for project and work collaboration for our remote teams. We finally decided on DeskAway and now save around 48 minutes of telephone talk time per day per number,” says Aditya Rao, cofounder and director, Social Business Strategy, Superchooha.
Speaking from personal experience, Ravi Venkateswar, COO, Godrej Household Products, adds: “Remote working tools enable a business to work 24/7. Global enterprises become infinitely more productive with the ability to respond quickly. For example, Net and video conferencing allow business to be carried on even through a travel crisis like the recent Iceland volcano that grounded a lot of people.”
“Collaboration tools (remote working tools) allow companies to quickly form teams across corporate boundaries, companies and continents; to provide customers with instant access to company experts to effectively share relevant business information. With these solutions you can improve interactions, make better decisions faster, and increase your responsiveness to customers and the market,” says Minhaj Zia, national sales manager, Unified Communications, Cisco, India and SAARC.
Better productivity: The combination of remote working tools like wireless devices with e-mail and digital photos has tremendously increased productivity for companies like Godrej Household Products. Elaborating on this, Venkateswar says: “We provide our sales team with handhelds, which has improved productivity. The sales people can easily access customer history, stock data, etc, allowing them to answer customer requests quickly and with the correct data. If integrated with business intelligence tools, we can also offer personalised discounts or promotions to special customers. It also releases the salesman from the administrative work of filing reports and increases the customer-facing time.”
E-mail and workflow applications have been integrated in the smartphones provided to senior managers ensuring quick decisions and communication at Godrej Household Products. For instance, remote factories can be connected through video conferencing to display defective products or production line problems to experts sitting at head office or at the R&D centre. Similarly, the sales team streams photographs of defects in products to the central quality assurance cell to give them a better understanding of the type of defect. A picture sure speaks a thousand words at Godrej Household Products. “Sales force PDAs have SFA (Sales Force Automation) and CRM applications which are critical for the team’s work. Such integration of wireless devices with e-mail and workflow applications has ensured that no decision is pending for more than four hours, unless there is a need for discussion or further data,” says Venkateswar.
Improved employee satisfaction: Further, remote working tools give employees flexibility like the option to work from home, which results in greater employee satisfaction and retention. Vouching for this, Goel also says: “Remote working tools have a significant impact on the work-life balance. It increases employee satisfaction and retention. Remote workers tend to be less stressed. Many avoid the daily commute to work and achieve a better work-life balance. Having happier staff is in an organisation’s best interests since it strengthens staff loyalty. The resultant drop in staff turnover reduces interruptions to projects and the delay in deliverables, not to mention the time and money lost to recruitment.”
The green angle: With environment consciousness increasing globally, most companies are attempting to walk on the corporate social responsibility road. Remote working tools, especially communication and collaboration tools, help a firm follow more ‘green’ working practices. “Online meetings like a Web conference or collaboratively working online can avoid travel by an aeroplane or a car, and thus reduce their carbon footprint. Even after the set-up costs have been taken care of, you could still save a lot of money by avoiding physical meetings,” says Datar.

So which job profiles will benefit the most from remote working?
These numerous benefits can be availed only if an organisation hands the remote working tools to the right professionals. Not all jobs are suited to remote working. “Some tasks require long periods of uninterrupted work and the use of just a PC; while others necessitate staff being on-site and available during working hours. The later role that requires extensive faceto- face interaction will not derive vast benefits from remote working technology and tools. For example, a manager who needs to closely monitor staff may not benefit from working remotely. On the other hand, a sales executive constantly on the run is a good candidate for adopting remote working tools,” explains Goel. Datar adds: “Remote working tools are apt for geographically dispersed employees to collaborate online. It can be used for internal or external training purposes. It can also be used as a cost-effective sales tool to reach new customers located remotely.

Making the right choice
But how does one go about choosing the right remote working tools? Collaboration and communication tools must have proper integration with existing back-office systems else, it significantly diminishes the effectiveness of the remote working solution. It would be an added advantage if the tool can support online and offline access since remote connectivity is not always available. Lastly, the tools should not require an elaborate supportive list of gadgets. They should work on regular netbooks, laptops or PDAs.
Communication tools: Communication technologies are tools that allow users to send messages, files and data. Their primary aim is to facilitate the sharing of information. VoIP (voice over Internet protocol), video conferencing, teleconferencing and Web conferencing are smart remote tools for the communication needs of a business. They involve communication across long distances with video and/or audio contact that may also include graphics and data exchange.

The collaboration suite
While communication technologies allow people to share information, collaboration technologies allow people to use this information and work together on tasks. Project management tools, Google Docs, Google Wave, social networking, etc, come in handy for collaboration.
Some solutions worth considering for collaboration include:
DeskAway: DeskAway is a tool for project and work collaboration between teams working remotely. It helps one organise, manage and track projects, ensuring everybody is kept in the loop on the project’s progress. It is SaaS-based, wherein no installation or setting up of servers is required.
Google Docs and Google Wave: Shared applications like Google Docs and Google Wave allow easy collaboration between small teams. While Google Docs allows multiple users to make edits to the same files at the same time, Wave goes a step further by showing up the typed output of geographically dispersed group members onscreen, in real time. The result is a very participative feeling of working together, rather than trading revisions of a document or replying to an e-mail thread, back and forth. “Google Wave has helped me a lot. As a Wave user, I could have discussions going beyond the e-mail interaction as the conversations get updated themselves on the fly, onscreen, as participants keep typing their responses. This helped me coordinate and collaborate seamlessly with my small team,” says Subash Chandra of Konark Media.
Today, teams spread across geographies or on the move can be seamlessly connected to any office in the world, vastly increasing productivity and reducing the ‘catchup’ work that travelling employees earlier had to do, when returning to their offices after a trip.