Winter is coming – and West Midlands companies are being urged to prepare for the worst.
Some estimates suggest that theUKeconomy lost £1.2 billion per day during the big freeze in December 2010 because staff could not make it into the office or the factory.
According to Warwickshire IT experts ACUTEC, office-based companies can mitigate against the loss of productivity during bad weather but they need to start preparing for it now.
Chris Roche, the managing director of ACUTEC, said: “In this day and age, office-based companies should be able to limit the disruption that bad weather can bring because it has never been easier to connect from home or remotely.
“The technology is such that it’s not just your PC that can be connected to the office but also telephony too.
“Our advice to clients is, however, not to wait until the snow starts falling to prepare for winter but to start doing it now.
“Of course, the size and sector of the company will decide exactly what they should put into place but certainly all office-based companies can give staff access to files either through remote access or via the cloud.
“Security is of key importance but, when implemented correctly we can make sure that all access is secure to give business owners peace of mind.”
He added: “Working from home is becoming increasingly important in general – particularly as new technology can help to give the impression to the outside world that you are in the office.
“But we do see a spike in the number of requests to set-up remote working as the bad weather kicks in.
“We would prefer to begin setting that up now because that means office disruption for companies can be kept to an absolute minimum.”