I’m sure many will agree that 2020 will stay in our memory for a little while! Many of us entered the New Year optimistically with new ambitious plans, promises and goals to achieve. The future looked promising and then the bomb was dropped on us all – the pandemic happened! Many small business owners realised that from then on they were facing new challenges. Technology, processes, operations and even culture and leadership had to be adapted to the new way of working. Everything was about balancing what was known with what was unknown. Running business before Covid-19 was easier because business owners and managers had knowledge about industry trends, customers’ buying behaviour and purchasing power, and with advice from experts new goals could be achieved, but from March onwards this wasn’t the case anymore.
The team at Octagon Technology have always been dedicated to deliver responsive, reliable and reassuring technology to their clients with an aim of providing technology without tears. The Covid-19 crisis has proved to be a real learning curve tech-wise for many businesses working out of both commercial premises and home. Naturally, many more people have been working from home and we have been helping people to access their office systems remotely. We felt that sharing our knowledge and experience with local businesses in this extremally challenging time was critical so that businesses could continue working effectively and stress free as much as possible during the crisis.
We started our Free Friday morning, online educational slots for our clients and local businesses with the aim of providing vital help and guidance to businesses and their staff working remotely. To deliver the sessions we used the technology we utilise at Octagon in order to give managers and business owners food for thought and encourage them to think about how they might improve or future-proof their tech and digital systems.
During our weekly webinars we talked to people about a wide range of computer programs that are designed to help them operate more effectively and efficiently whilst working remotely, such as Microsoft 365 for Business, OneNote, Teams, SharePoint and ESET security, on computers and on phones and tablets.
We understand that working from home can create risks and present challenges for data safety and privacy. Therefore, we educated people about the importance of data safety and privacy, governance and security, illustrating why revisiting GDPR/Data Protection Act regulations can play a key role in data safety, why protecting digital data may be more difficult than we think or why risk assessment, data integrity and availability are important.
The best reward we could receive for doing this was the positive feedback received from the attendees. Here are few examples:
- Wendy Brown, John Roberts Architects
Thank you Octagon Technology for taking the time to show us how to use Teams. Prior to being forced to work from home due to Covid-19 this is not something we had even entertained with us all being in the office everyday. Your show-and-tell sessions have been a really valuable insight into what Teams can do for us as an individual and also as a Company. We are now using it all the time to communicate with each other during the working day and it is great for us lone workers to have contact with the outside world again. I am sure that over time we will all find more and more uses for it and will become more of an integral part of our ‘Team’ and we discover all of its abilities.
- Nicola Richardson, The People Mentor
Octagon’s sessions have been excellent. Well thought out and full of practical advice that makes our jobs as business owners and jobholders easier. I have learnt so much about Teams from Clive. He is patient and funny with it as well which makes it easy to relate to Clive.
On a separate note, I have been so impressed with the support from Octagon Technology and nothing is too much trouble. I have had some issues with software and they bent over to help me and very quickly as well. I would highly recommend this business.
- Stuart Clegg, Stuart Clegg Payroll
Octagon Technology’s Free Friday web meetings are excellent. The team always provide excellent advice on a variety of tech issues. They are always followed up with an email of hand-outs or any slides used in the meeting. They encourage questions and input from meeting members. I had a follow-up phone call regarding an issue I had and Martin logged on to my computer and solved the problem within minutes (free of charge also)! Thank-you to all!
Kamila
