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Guest post: Greening to our customers’ ambitions

Tony Chan | June 29, 2010 | 0 Comments

by David Stanton, VP, Enterprise Sales at Cable&Wireless Worldwide

As organisations are realising the efficiency and productivity benefits of remote working practices and adapting to increasingly dynamic working environments, the demand for flexible, responsive, secure networks is on the rise. In fact, remote working is now a key part of any converged networking solution.

But a bigger driver today, is the need for companies to reduce their carbon footprint. New laws are now in place in the UK for example, taxing companies on their carbon emissions and this will have a significant financial impact on most businesses. The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme (previously the Carbon Reduction Commitment) is the UK’s mandatory climate change and energy saving scheme incorporating the Climate Change Act 2008. It comes into effect in April 2010 and outlines the UK’s commitment to reduce its carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, and as a result, businesses are required to introduce long-term targets on climate change which will have significant costs for all as they look to implement carbon reduction targets and energy efficient programmes.

There are a number of options available to help reduce carbon emissions such as procuring electricity from sustainable resources, implementing Managed Video Conferencing systems to reduce the amount of business travel required for meetings and one of the easiest to do – implementing a remote working policy for your business.

Remote working has a range of business benefits; it not only reduces an organisation’s carbon footprint but it also enables potential cost savings. A side benefit is that the company isn’t as severely impacted by adverse weather or transport failure as the workforce is already working remotely. This greatly reduces the burden of a robust business continuity plan.

The major ‘green’ benefits of remote working are the reduction in unnecessary travel, which can have a massive impact on an organisation’s carbon emissions, and the associated reduction in the use of office space, equipment and power. With employees working away from the office, organisations can save on heating, cooling and energy consumption, all of which adds up to a significant reduction in its carbon footprint. And we mustn’t ignore the benefit for employees; remote working is a significant way to help employees achieve a better work/life balance.

IPVPN
Many businesses may believe the necessary IT and network infrastructure changes required to implement remote working are a barrier, that they’re too complex and expensive to implement, but solutions such as Cable&Wireless Worldwide’s IP Virtual Private Network (IPVPN) provide the backbone for remote working. The IPVPN is a managed service for carrying voice and data traffic across the public network and is designed for organisations that want to connect all their employees and sites in the UK to a single corporate network. Based on the Cable&Wireless Worldwide next-generation network, IPVPN converges voice and data lines to ensure businesses have the necessary bandwidth to deal with all the applications businesses now require. It also supports mission critical communications in the office and facilitates remote access.

Next-generation networks also support applications that are quickly becoming the norm, such as IP voice and Managed Video Conferencing (MVC). With converged networks facilitating these applications organisations can reduce the need to travel to meetings – dramatically reducing carbon emissions. Cable&Wireless Worldwide has a partnership deal with Regus that gives businesses of all sizes the opportunity to take full advantage of this technology, and the green benefits associated with it.

REGUS
Regus has locations in 14 of the world’s business capitals, including London, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Manchester, Mumbai, Moscow, Frankfurt, Paris, Shanghai, Sydney, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo, giving businesses a genuine alternative to travel. With MVC suites available worldwide, remote workers can go to their local Regus offices and receive all the benefits of face-to-face interaction without having to travel.

There are a variety of types of remote working, from home workers to field workers and those travelling temporarily that would have different requirements from full remote working for all corporate applications and files to those that require limited access to webmail or CRM systems. These needs are all met by setting up an IPVPN, allowing remote workers to connect to the business network through any broadband, network or WiFi provider, such as their home broadband provider or accessing public WiFi connections.

Technology requirements are dependent on the level of access required and remote working does have its risks. These vary from inappropriate browsing and introducing malware onto the corporate network to data loss whilst in transition, making sensitive information vulnerable to corruption and viruses. Appropriate security controls must be applied to mitigate and reduce these risks which can be addressed through authentication considerations, access times, locking down endpoints and so on. Cable&Wireless Worldwide’s Secure Gateway proposition is a range of services designed for preventing these threats from getting into our customers’ networks, protecting their business and data integrity. It consists of managed firewall, intrusion detection, security information management, authentication services, email security, content security and distributed denial of service (DDos) protection.

Finding the right balance between business requirements and networking options available will ensure businesses are adequately prepared for remote working. For many businesses today, it is critical that they are constantly connected to colleagues, customers and suppliers wherever they are, around the clock, on any device. With the correct infrastructure in place remote working is fast becoming a business enabler that can reduce environmental impact, cut costs and increase efficiency and productivity.

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