The global COVID-19 pandemic has affected the status quo at all levels – at home, in the community and in the workplace. As a result, we've all got used to adapting to rapid changes. One of those changes was the widespread transition to remote working to prevent the virus from spreading.
While the postponement took place before the eruption, the old procedure has apparently turned. Instead of 80% of employees in offices and 20% of employees working remotely, 88% of companies now use the work-at-home model. Businesses today have also moved or are in the process of finding and hiring talent based on proven experience and skills rather than worrying about the physical location restrictions.
The Benefits of Remote Working for Enterprises
The benefits of a remote working environment are many. From higher productivity, higher employee loyalty and the ability to reduce environmental pollution and real estate costs, to better work-life balance, companies are making the most of a difficult situation.
Cross-industry organizations have recognized that remote work is the silver lining of the new normal. This new model has helped accelerate the use of technology, fuel digital transformation, and demolish the negative myths previously associated with working from home. All of these effects have helped lay the foundation for long-term change. A recent Gartner survey found that 74% of CFOs say they intend to make the remote working move permanent for some employees.
This move to digitization, which supports a work-at-home model, means that the cost of non-customization becomes higher than the cost of implementation. One company that began making the transition to remote working before the pandemic and has had success ever since is Eclaro.
Eclaro is a management and technology consulting company that supplies top talent in various industries worldwide. Its highly skilled engineers and industry experts create thousands of documents each month for finance and HR departments to review.
When they first contacted Access, Eclaro stated that they were facing the challenge of a paper-based, high-touch process. They used a manual process to print, assemble, and file essential documents. This process was labor intensive, exposed the company to the risk of lost or incorrect paperwork, and was not in line with the global growth plan of this leading IT and business consulting organization.
The Eclaro team knew they wanted a solution that would integrate with Microsoft Dynamics GP and allow secure access to a remote workforce.
The solution
In order to switch to a remote work environment, Eclaro would have to switch to a scalable digital process. The company needed a solution that would give team members in the US and the Philippines secure access.
Eclaro researched and implemented Access & # 39; CartaDC. The implementation enabled them to switch their processes from paper-based to digital, and provided them with a document management solution integrated with their ERP, Microsoft Dynamics GP. Finance and HR teams can work together with the document management solution. The document repository, along with continuous import integration into Microsoft Dynamics GP, provides the team with timely and accurate information. Today Eclaro team members can perform 95% of what was once a paper-based process in a fully digital environment.
Luke Ruzek, Assistant to the Director of Operations at Eclaro, stated, “Our old process was not scalable and remote teams did not have secure and easy access to documents. CartaDC is a game changer with which we were able to digitize a process that used to be paper-intensive. "
How it works:
Through CartaDC, Eclaro team members can find, view and share invoices, time sheets and contracts that are essential to their role. The finance and HR teams routinely process Confidential Personal Information (PII), so security is of the utmost importance to Eclaro. The teams needed the ability to share documents on both an ad hoc and project basis. CartaDC's data protection protocols ensure that sensitive information in documents is protected by allowing the Eclaro team to limit the ability of recipients to print, download and forward documents.
The members of the Eclaro team can also set up virtual file rooms for larger projects. In the solution's virtual file room, team members can set up a folder that contains a group of documents to be reviewed. In addition to the security features available for ad hoc sharing, CartaDC file spaces may have restrictions on how long the information is available to viewers.
The advantages that Eclaro offers by implementing Access CartaDC are manifold. At the top of that list is the ability to enable global collaboration and reduce labor costs. In particular, the Eclaro team can now work with team members in the Philippines. The finance and HR departments are also able to form dynamic, highly focused teams in order to increase efficiency and reduce costs.
Another advantage of CartaDC is the ability to provide employees with secure remote access. Eclaro initially looked for remote access to digitized files to enable better collaboration between the locations in NYC and the Philippines. The flexibility to work remotely is now critical to business continuity, making CartaDC even more powerful for Eclaro. Eclaro's ability to digitally access information from any location and to share it securely means that the company is more resilient.
Eclaro chose to partner with Access because CartaDC was the right solution that could integrate with their existing ERP and help them achieve their growth goals. The partnership deepened during the implementation process when Eclaro's New York City offices were badly hit by the pandemic. The Access team worked with Eclaro to successfully complete the implementation while keeping the members of both teams healthy and safe.
Ultimately, Eclaro was able to digitize 95% of a manual, paper-intensive process. The ability to work remotely when it matters most has been invaluable. This increased efficiency has enabled Eclaro to serve its customers faster and with greater accuracy.
To learn more about facilitating the transition to remote work and planning for the future, see the Gartner report, Workforce Resilience in the Eye of the Pandemic: Overcoming the Current Situation in the Remote work while planning for the future .
