We all know that COVID-19 has had a dramatic effect on the workforce and workplace. As the economy reopens in fits and starts, a disturbingly high number of workers continue to file for unemployment. Meanwhile, businesses struggle with how to survive in the new normal, and whether and how to bring employees back to work. […]
Category: Social And Collaboration
We’re All in the Video Business Now: Pro Tips That Everyone Can Use
In the age of COVID-19, video conferencing has taken off. Companies that lacked or never used the video element of web conferencing started to do so. People who used to turn their cameras off for online meetings started turning them on. Zooming became a verb as more and more people are starring in, supporting, or playing bit roles in online meetings, classes, and e...
Mobilizing Technology for Effective Remote Working Environments
The practice of working from home has skyrocketed in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, as companies told their employees to stay home to comply with the widespread quarantine and social-distancing requirements. Small and medium businesses (SMBs) have had to coordinate a sudden and massive migration to work from home (WFH) for almost all of their employees, using collaboration tools in ways that ...
How is Your Business Navigating to the Next Normal? Take this New SMB Group Survey
In the past three months, COVID-19 has disrupted any notion of business as usual. SMB Group felt that it was critical to provide immediate data to understand its impact on small and medium businesses (SMBs), and the steps they took at the outset to weather the storm.
Building a Collaboration Strategy for The Evolving Workplace
There’s no question that COVID-19 has forever changed the way small and medium businesses (SMBs) think about the “workplace”, shifting the concept from the physical world to a virtual one. Recently, Mona Abou-Sayed, Mitel’s VP of Collaboration and Applications, and I discussed this in a LinkedIn Live session, Building Cultur...
What We Know: Preparing for the Next Normal
The adage that “the only constant is change” has never seemed more relevant than today. In the past three months, COVID-19 has disrupted any notion of “business as usual.” However, we were already in the midst of another, very transformative change before COVID-19. Whether you call it a digital revolution, digital transformation, the information era, or something else, its become obvious tha...
Building Culture and Collaboration for the Next Normal: Join Us on LinkedIn Live
Mark your calendars for what I’m sure will be a lively LinkedIn Live session on Tuesday, June 2! Register here, details are below. The trend towards work from home (WFM) had already been rising prior to COVID-19. According to Flexjobs, it rose 44% in the past 5 years. With COVID-19, ...
Zoho Bigin: A New Way for Small Businesses to Get Started with CRM
Small businesses almost always find it challenging to get started and productive with new business solutions—and CRM is no exception.
Canceling or Postponing an Analyst Event? Make the Best of the Situation
In late winter and early spring, my schedule is usually jam-packed with IT industry analyst events and analyst tracks at customer events. But this year, my calendar is gradually thinning out as coronavirus takes its toll and more and more vendors decide to cancel or postpone their events. From a public (and personal!) health perspective, this is clearly a good call. The virus conti...
Zoho’s Big Plans for Small Businesses
Until recently, Zoho’s focus been on the small business market, which now accounts for more than 80% of its customers. But over the past couple of years, Zoho has launched a concentrated campaign to win business in larger accounts. All too often, once vendors go upmarket, they slowly but surely lose focus on the small businesses that “brung ‘em” to the dance in the first place. However, as I...