Remote work thanks to Comarch cloud
Hand-written orders, self-copying forms, tons of forms stored in endless binders are becoming something as archaic as films on DVDs or photos on photosensitive paper. With the development of technology, the world moved first to the computer, and now it’s moving to the cloud. This is changing the way we do business – more and more tasks can be done from outside the office.
Work remotely by choice or necessity
Working remotely is sometimes the choice of the employer, and sometimes of the employees. It can also happen that it is a situation forced by external factors. However, regardless of the circumstances, cloud systems are the ideal, if not the only, solution for companies wishing to develop this forward-looking model at home. According to the Forbes website, which has just (March 2020) published its own independent research based on information from such prestigious institutions as the Gallup Institute and Harvard University, remote work really improves financial results of companies. Productivity of remote workers is almost 40 percent higher than in-office workers, due to greater independence, they make fewer mistakes and are more engaged – another benefit for the company. The report shows that as many as 54 percent of employees would change their job for one that would give them more flexibility.
Mobile surveillance
The word pronounced by all cases in the context of ERP systems in the cloud is “mobility”. Why? Because among their many advantages, the biggest one is the ability to effectively manage the company not from behind a desk in the headquarters, but literally from anywhere. There is only one condition: an Internet connection. If it’s done, the person in charge of the company will have access to all company processes from their smartphone or laptop – technology has advanced to such an extent that there is no area that would be excluded from the option of remote supervision. So he can manage sales, contact employees who perform their tasks from home or other locations, monitor the efficiency and time of their work; he can control the state of the company thanks to clear Business Intelligence reports, check inventory or issue invoices, supervise production lines and organize deliveries.
Such a model of functioning of the ERP system, without the need to install software, available from the level of the web browser, by the way translates into costs – the company does not incur expenses on rent and maintenance of the server room, which is important especially for those just entering the market. Work in the cloud environment always uses the latest version of the software, which not only minimizes the risk of disruptions, errors, slowdowns, but also saves on paid updates. In addition, when the company grows – the cloud system grows with it, thanks to the possibility of adding new modules: starting with software for handling human resources and payroll, through software for managing the working time and vacations of your employees, to software for handling service orders.
For example: in the e-commerce industry, which has been developing intensely in recent years, thanks to modern B2C (Comarch e-Store) and B2B (Comarch B2B) store management platforms integrated with Comarch ERP system, company managers are able to remotely, using a tablet or a phone, supervise the entire sales process – from placing products in an offer, editing product descriptions, to finalizing transactions and arranging shipments. At any time of day or night, they can review order and payment history, as well as invoices, including paper ones, which have been digitized and placed in the cloud (Comarch OCR program). And thanks to IBARD application for secure data backup, storage and sharing, they can view and edit documents on their mobile devices, and the changes will be immediately visible to those employees who have been granted access to the directories (secure encryption).
Close but at a distance
Managing a company remotely raises concerns of some entrepreneurs about managing employees – that being in different locations makes it difficult to control their progress in performing tasks. However, such fears are unfounded, as there are special tools that make it possible to organize the work of a team from any place and in an extremely convenient way – setting up a schedule (which is displayed in a very clear form), absence management, reviewing employees’ documents – civil law contracts or periodic examination referrals (Comarch HRM program – link to the application: https://www.comarch.pl/erp/aplikacje-mobilne/comarch-hrm/).
Working time registration (Comarch TNA) is not a problem either. For this purpose devices mounted in buildings (offices, warehouses, production plants) (TNA Gateway) connect to the application in employees’ phones and immediately transmit to the cloud information about their entries and exits.
It is also possible to remotely assess the effectiveness in such areas as commerce, accounting or human resources (Comarch MyPoint presents the results of work in the form of clear graphics), as well as – from the level of the website or application – review the company’s correspondence (its complete service is provided by Comarch DMS, which shortens the time of work with electronic documents – by enabling quick addition of document scans, indicating the employee who is responsible for a given task or controlling the time of task completion).
Security cloud
Remote working means working with data. This raises the question of whether cloud solutions are safe? Yes. All data generated by the companies is stored on the system provider’s servers, who is responsible for maintaining the IT environment, and not on local company servers without constant monitoring, where it could become an easy target for hackers.