Before the Corona crisis, the remote work was rather ridiculed and only used occasionally, in 2020 it became everyday life for many. Because of the pandemic, our working world has changed drastically. But what is the best and safest way for companies to bring their now dispersed employees together? The changeover came almost overnight for many companies and workforces around the globe. All of a sudden, people work wherever there is space: in the kitchen at home or in the living room - but security is not the top priority.

For companies there is a lot to consider in this new, hybrid working environment and the past few months have also shown that cyber criminals are trying to take advantage of the remote work. IT specialist Cisco Systems helps to secure the home office with reliable and secure connections, at the same time humanity is promoted through "collaboration" possibilities.

Simple but efficient

With these solutions, users do not have to concentrate on the technology, because Cisco offers easy-to-use tools for efficient collaborative work in the cloud. It also establishes a team with video conferences, sending messages and sharing files as well as working on digital whiteboards. The US company covers tools such as user and device verification, theft protection and cloud security.

The current study "Cisco Future of Secure Remote Work Report" underscores the growing importance of protecting the home office. Before the pandemic, a maximum of 15 percent of employees were working externally, recently this value rose to 53 percent. An ascending trend.

Small and medium-sized companies can also see the crisis as an opportunity to catch up on the digital backlog that often exists. Cisco offers these companies individual solutions, focusing on five key use cases: Working from home, protection against cyber criminals, business continuity, modern workplaces and the new normal in the office. These solutions can be flexibly adapted to the respective needs and scaled as required.

How does this work?

Small business employees are increasingly mobile and need stable and secure connections to the Internet for this. For technology to be a success factor, however, it must also be user-friendly and compatible. Otherwise, employees look for a way past the given solutions. Companies should therefore realize at an early stage that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for digitizing their business. The basis for every digital transformation is formed by simple, flexible and secure network connections - with the right level of IT security to protect confidential business information and data.

Cisco offers small and medium-sized companies an easy-to-install and use solution for their virtual meetings, which offers a great advantage: external partners do not have to install any software, but dial in from any device via the web browser. It includes full encryption to protect video, audio, screen sharing and messaging functions.

It also contains protected file shares and integrated security for mobile meetings - the privacy and, in some cases, sensitive information of employees and business contacts remain protected. It also can be used, for example, to protect sensitive data by verifying the identity of the user through secure two-factor authentication.