How Prism Hosted Desktop can help in the current Covid-19 crisis

After months of development and testing, we have just launched our Prism Hosted Desktop solution which will allow organisations to offer agile working practices. It is an unfortunate coincidence that the launch happened in the same week that the World Health Organisation declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic. 

However, with the spread of the Covid-19 virus continuing apace, businesses are facing the very real threat that employees will have to self-isolate. Suddenly, the importance of agile working and business continuity plans are coming to the fore, with talk of possible school closures and the UK potentially facing an Italian-style lockdown. Previously, situations like the one we are facing seemed hypothetical; today they’re very real and CEOs are genuinely concerned about how their organisation will be able to continue trading if a large proportion of staff members cannot make it into the office. 

Advantages of Prism Hosted Desktop 

The advantage for people who work in offices and the professional services sector is that, with the right technology, such as Prism Hosted Desktop, staff can work remotely – whether they’re self-isolating or out of the office for any other reason. It is in times like this that firms find out just how robust their business continuity plans and agile working practices really are. 

For organisations that have already installed a hosted desktop solution, it will be an easy transition. Each staff member will be able to access all their work, including data stored on their individual desktop and continue with business as usual – in fact the only concern would be how to handle physical aspects of the business, such as sending and receiving invoices and other documentation.  

Cybersecurity risks are reduced owing to the user’s device basically being a ‘thin client’ that clones the data rather than downloading it. So whether your employee is working from home or in a café on an insecure public WiFi network, if a computer virus affects their personal device they will avoid passing this on to your business.

What steps can your firm take now? 

Even if your organisation does not have a hosted desktop solution, there are steps you can take immediately to help mitigate the effects of staff needing to work remotely. Depending on your current system, it may be possible to use deployment tools such as SCCM to get Prism Hosted Desktop up and running in a couple of weeks. 

You could give employees direct access through remote desktop connections. However, the risk is that if all staff have to log in remotely, the system will become overloaded. There are also security challenges involved with staff logging in from non-company devices. 

Even if you have a system that will enable your staff to work remotely, you must test it. Not only will this allow you to iron out any difficulties without any loss of productivity, it will also give everyone using it a chance to learn what they need to do and get up to speed, reducing delays in getting your business running efficiently in the event of a shut down. 

In the future

If your organisation is now considering moving to a hosted desktop solution, whether it is to help you move to agile working practices, or mitigate the effects of future virus outbreaks, flooding, fires, etc., contact us to find out how Prism Hosted Desktop can integrate with your IT system.