There is a growing trend among mid-sized and large enterprises that have increasingly distributed workforces who need access to collaborative business applications and services outside of their corporate offices.
As businesses continue to find ways to stay agile, the teleworker has made steady gains in popularity. Technology has given the teleworker the convenience of a flexible schedule without sacrificing productivity or security.
SDA Asia chats with Tom Cheong Managing Director of Cisco Singapore and Brunei on the increasing popularity of Telelworking in the Asian region, its challenges and Cisco’s contribution to this space.
With a wide range of factors driving the remote or home working revolution, what would you consider the key benefits for both i) the employees (ii) the organization?
Tom Cheong (TC):Cisco's view has always been that telecommuting is a necessary component of any company's workplace strategy especially in the increasingly globalized world where employees increasingly find themselves having to straddle a few time zones.
For the employees, they get better control of their work hours and improve their work-life balance. For employers, the benefits are a far more flexible workforce while lowering office rental costs as well as their carbon footprint.
Cisco for example has approximately 12,000 teleworkers around the world. However, our entire workforce is actually equipped to work anytime, anywhere and Cisco pays for home broadband access for all our employees. Consequently, 85% of our employees spend time each week working from home and an average of 24% of their work time is at home.
This enables our employees to save an average of 2.75 hours a week from the reduced commuting time. This has also helped Cisco to reduce its carbon footprint with an average reduction of 36.4 commuting miles per day per user. This translates to a reduction in automobile carbon emissions by 30,435 tons of carbon dioxide annually and a savings of US,561 a year in re-forestation project costs required to offset that automobile carbon footprint.
In our Singapore office, Cisco implemented mobility for our employees in Singapore about three months ago. About 40 per cent of our 1,000-strong employee base now do not have an assigned desk in the office. Instead, they have a Cisco Virtual Office solution at home.
This has enabled us to reduce our desk-to-employee ration from 1.18 to 0.96. That means there are now only 0.96 desks per employee. We expect to reduce this to 0.8 by the end of 2009.
We estimate that this will result in rental avoidance of US million over the next three years.
How would you describe the remote/home working trend in Asia?
TC:It is surely but steadily gaining popularity especially as the Gen-Yers and the Millenials enter the workforce. These people grew up in the Web 2.0 world so they need a work environment that they can identify with.
Which countries within the region do you see embracing this practice more readily? Why?
TC:This is not a country-specific phenomenon, although the trend is definitely stronger in countries with good broadband and PC penetrations.
How different is the notion of remote/ home working in Asia than when compared to the UK or US?
TC:It’s true that Asian companies look less favorably on teleworking and probably because the older generation are too used to the notion of the office being the only definition of a workspace. This is starting to change as globalization intensifies and the workforce gets populated by Gen-Yers and the Millenials.
Whilst the concept of teleworking has existed for a long time. One of the traditional concerns has been associated with workforce productivity. Do you think organisations should still be concerned about this?
TC:Not just productivity but security. However, technology has improved to such an extent that with solutions such as the Cisco Virtual Office, an organisation can provide the same level of security for the employee at home as in the office. The question of productivity is also being addressed with more companies moving to well-defined goals and objectives. Cisco for example measures employee performance by how well they achieve their pre-determined objectives and not by the number of hours they spend in the office.
What are the security issues behind teleworking that companies should be vigilant about?
TC:When you are giving your teleworkers the same access to the company intranet as they will get in the office, you will need to ensure that they have the same level of security. The Cisco Virtual Office does that, providing the teleworker with end-to-end security back to the corporate intranet.
How has Cisco tackled these challenges in its new Cisco Virtual Office solution?
TC:A typical Cisco Virtual Office deployment provides full IP phone, wireless, data, video, and even TelePresence services. With Dynamic Multipoint VPN (DMVPN) technology, these services are delivered securely and transparently. The teleworker gets the experience of a single telephone extension and one wireless network that works in both the office and the home. In addition, the Cisco Virtual Office solution enables secure “split tunneling,” allowing spouses or other family members to access the Internet through a different, dedicated network segment.
From an IT perspective, the Cisco Virtual Office solution provides a headend architecture for simplified management and operations. This architecture drastically improves the IT scalability, offers more robust and flexible security, and reduces the cost while improving the manageability of remote sites.
One method in which this scenario is accomplished is through a zero-touch deployment model. In this model, configurations of remote-site equipment are kept up-to-date and in compliance with corporate policies automatically.
There is no need to preconfigure the remote-site routers. When deployed, the router is programmed to automatically “call home” to the management servers at the headend to check for any relevant updates in configuration or software.
These updates are then “pushed” to the devices without any need for human intervention on the remote site, enabling organizations to properly secure their remote worker environment while effectively delivering the applications and services necessary to keep the user base productive.
This technology is facilitated through the headend architecture, which includes a VPN aggregation point that is provided in the form of a Cisco VPN router (typically a Cisco 3800 Series Integrated Services Router, a Cisco 7200 Series Router, or a Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switch). This component also provides VPN convergence, terminating different VPN endpoints, devices, and technologies on a single device. In addition, the headend architecture includes Cisco Security Manager, Cisco Secure Access Control Server (ACS), and the Cisco Configuration Engine. Together, these features incorporate the ability to define network wide policy, use identity for authorization, and actively update configurations at remote sites through a zero-touch deployment model.
Finally, the Cisco Virtual Office solution provides a full set of services from Cisco and approved partners. Examples include the Cisco Virtual Office Planning, Design, and Implementation Service; the Cisco Remote Management Service; and the Cisco Security Optimization Service. Together, these services provide holistic support for the deployment, integration, management, and optimization of the Cisco Virtual Office solution.
Does implementing the Cisco Virtual Office at an employee’s home alter the internet surfing experience for the rest of the household in any way? If so how?
TC:This will depend on the broadband speed to the home.
Are there particular industries you expect to adopt this solution more readily? If so, which ones and why?
TC:No. Teleworking can apply to many industries.
What are the future technologies that you reckon might become part of a teleworking suite?
TC: One interesting possibility is TelePresence, especially as costs come down and home broadband speeds go up. |
