denotes premium content | May 26 2012 
Feature
posted 5 Oct 2004 in Volume 1 Issue 4
Freeing the shackles
Organisations are beginning to change the way they work by making use of secure remote access technologies. Calum Macleod, European director of Netilla Networks, explains the role that virtual private networks are playing within the industry.
We all want the opportunity to work fewer hours and avoid wasting time travelling to and from work. The maximum acceptable daily commute for most London workers has recently increased to two hours from one. This equates to over 20 hours per week spent commuting; an added 50 per cent on a 40 hour working week and around £4,000 per year on transport costs. Thankfully, more large corporations are looking at ways to enhance the working environment and to find ways to cut this daily commute. At the same time, companies are being faced with a mountain of challenges, including: providing e-enabled access to services for their staff, clients and suppliers; providing round the clock services; and providing remote access for field workers while ensuring the corporate network remains secure and protected.
Therefore, the arguments to provide the opportunity for remote or home working become stronger every day as:
- The daily commute becomes difficult and stressful for commuters;
- It can be the cornerstone of an employer’s flexible working policy;
- Past evidence has shown that it helps with staff retention, which saves money;
- It can significantly reduce the need for expensive office space;
- Staff can often be more productive working at home for at least part of the week;
- Staff save hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds in commuting costs;
- Staff are happier, because they have a better quality of family life and much more flexibility;
- It helps to empower people and give them greater responsibility.
These factors should force society, employers and employees to ask themselves if the traditional commuting model is still valid, especially with the change in regular work pattern to a round the clock service-provision requirement.
Remote working can now successfully be achieved in a secure manner with clientless virtual private networks (VPNs) or single socket layer (SSL) VPNs. This new technology, delivered as a single appliance can be installed quickly and easily in an organisation’s data centre, enabling the remote and home worker, using a web browser, to see and use everything that’s in the office. They can update their diary, find out about meetings, read minutes, amend and print documents and change and update databases. It brings the IT facilities of the office into the home of the authorised worker in a secure manner.
The appeal of a VPN is that it allows an organisation to connect its branch offices, remote employees and partners by using the public internet, rather than expensive dedicated lines from the phone company. But because the internet is a public communications medium, care must be taken to safeguard these private and privileged corporate communications by encrypting them at both the user and corporate end points. Thus, the internet is simply used as a data tunnel through which encrypted communications are sent.
The medical profession has been one of the first sectors to really grasp this technology. Doctors are able to quickly and easily get results for patients online in a secure manner, while also accessing information that allows them to be able to act swiftly, update medical records, look at x-rays online, order medicines and arrange immediate treatment for their patients. The doctors have taken to the technology because it’s inexpensive, simple to use and requires little training. The screen on their laptop or PDA looks exactly as it does on their computers in the hospitals, requiring little help from their IT departments and allowing them the autonomy they are used to. The technology also suits the working pattern of doctors, who are often in transit and don’t want to be carrying medical and confidential files. It has equally compelling benefits for the hospital’s IT staff, who no longer need to worry about configuring communications software onto hundreds of PCs that belong to affiliated physicians.
Manufacturing, finance, exhibitions, retail, shipping and the public sectors have all grasped and adopted the technology because of its – fast access, ease of use, accessibility, simple deployment, high security, low cost, and ability to provide organisations to customise the data accessible to each user.
For those managers who still need convincing, consider the implications of the Employment Act of 2002 and its two associated regulations, which have given mothers and fathers the right to request to work flexibly from April 2003.
The legislation virtually imposes a legal requirement for employers to implement the technology and facilitate the option of home working.
Technological developments have given us the means to work virtually in the country, if not the world, at any time of the day. A round the clock society needs similar public services; the only cost effective way and socially acceptable way they can be delivered is through implementing remote and home working.
