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Loading ...Cruising through my feeds today, I came across an article in UTalkMarketing. Not normally something that would result in a post here, but this time it is. It was one of those how to guides - “How to survive the credit crunch” - the interesting thing is that 4 of the 5 points are technology related (remembering that this is from a marketing site, not a technology one):
- Encourage flexible working
- Hot desking and mobility
- Get rid of hardware you don’t need
- (Make) Lasting changes
They suggest getting rid of the office, or reducing its size by using hot desking and making use of hosted services for voice and other applications. For me it came as a gentle reminder of how mainstream these things are becoming. Certainly there is little reason for employees to be desk bound:
- Mobile telephony is more affordable than ever.
- Bandwidth is more than sufficient and affordable (both Broadband and mobile).
- VPN and/or hosted applications are simple to implement.
If staff are stuck in the office, its time to think about why. Getting them set free also helps with disaster recovery - they can pick up sticks and move to wherever there is bandwidth and space. It’s time to ditch the fax machine, throw the email servers out of the office and move on.
Beating the crunch is about saving money and learning how to use the resources you already have such as the internet, mobiles and email. Simple cost cutting initiatives won’t just save you now, they are the way of the future if any company is to expand beyond 2008.
Technology has always been about better, faster, cheaper. As business is too, it should be a surprise that business technology holds the answer the dealing with tightening markets.
hindsight, powerful stuff :). On the post recession (recession? what recession? I thought it was just a crunch) thoughts I agree. We’ll definitely see leaner companies, and a lot less tolerance for wasteful or ineffective technology projects. Not sure about the babies though - I’m stopping at my 4!
Same thing via my feeds (different sources). Oh how I wish I’d started that “Make Working From Home Easy” startup we were toying with a year ago. As you know, Benjamin, we’ve worked entirely virtually (across countries also!) for a couple of years.
When companies come out this recession, I bet we see:
# leaner companies
# less vehicle use
# increased laptop sales
# better mental health
# higher domestic electricity bills
# more babies