Supporting remote work in 2020

Whether it's in response to the recent coronavirus outbreak or supporting flexible schedules, companies are looking to find quick and simple ways to support the needs of remote work. In the U.S. alone, 43%of the workforce has spent at least some time working remotely, and that number has steadily increased throughout recent years.

As a cloud collaboration platform, Box has long been a part of how our customers support mobile and remote work. With Box, users can securely store and manage all of their files while supporting real-time collaboration with their team, partners, and vendors. And for IT, getting set up is incredibly simple. With a few clicks, your users will be up and running in no time.

So how do you make sure that your organization can collaborate smoothly with Box to support remote work? Here are some key points to think about:

Tip 1: Bring the best in cloud collaboration and productivity tools

To support an increasingly mobile and connected workforce, it's important to provide users the right tools for their workforce. We believe this so deeply that we've built Box on an open platform that connects to over 1400+ leading software providers. While you can learn about all of our partner integrations, here are a few that support remote work:

• Productivity Tools - Pre-built integrations with productivity suites like G-Suite and O365 from within Box avoid interrupting your pace of work
• Collaboration Workspaces - Deep integrations with key collaboration workspaces - like Slack, Microsoft Teams and Hangouts - helps connect teams and conversations to content
• Video Communication - With the latest Zoom integration, users can share files directly from your Box account into a Zoom Meeting using the screen sharing function - without ever leaving the Zoom app
• Line of Business Apps - Support front and back-office departments with key e-signature integrations with Docusign and Adobe Sign and critical line of business applications like Salesforce, NetSuite, AutoCAD and more
• Security - apps like Okta, onelogin, Azure Active Directory and others not only support single sign-on, but mobile device management and cloud security as well

Tip 2: Everything in the cloud, please!

Content and information sprawl: It’s real and growing. IDC predicts in 2025 the world will create and replicate 163 ZB of data, or the equivalent of watching the entire Netflix catalog nearly 500 million times. Unfortunately, today’s content is increasingly scattered across servers and applications in the cloud. That simply makes it too hard for employees to securely access and share the information they need to get their work done with teammates, partners, and customers who are outside their corporate boundaries.

By centralizing content in Box, businesses are offering more than just a single repository for cloud storage. Users get a rich and simple collaboration experience on any device, while IT gets the granular security controls they need to support sharing with internal and external teams. In short, employees can save time and effort, with consistent access to the right content in a single location.

Tip 3: Balance the needs of users with the mandate to be secure and compliant

 As the flow of content and interaction increases across users, the potential for risk typically expands. More devices, applications, people, and processes are touching all that content, and IT teams need a centralized way to control and manage access. At Box, we enable collaboration while preventing security vulnerabilities, governing all of your content, and responding to threats. How?

• Built-in security. Security features are baked into the core: capabilities like 2FA, SSO, device trust and DLP help keep your invaluable business information from falling into the wrong hands.
• Centralized control and visibility. With the Box Admin Console, get the access management you need to centrally manage security and access across remote teams. Comprehensive IT controls let you manage how your teams collaborate and share content, which ensures you're staying secure and compliant.
• Simple governance and compliance. With simplified retention policies and compliance requirements to support the full range of industry and geographic-specific regulations, documents such as employee information or financial records are properly retained. 
• Threat detection and smart access. Get alerts on suspicious behaviour in Box, and automatically classify your confidential content to prevent leaks in real time

Support remote work with a FREE instructor-led Box class

Remote work is only going to be more of a focus in 2020. That's why we'd like to extend our support by offering a free course to helps users get the most out of Box, as quickly as possible. While we offer a number of free, on-demand education classes, we're also be offering a free 1-hour, instructor-led User Essentials course. By entering in the promotion code "UEFREE", we'll waive the fee so that your users will learn how to navigate their Box account and build an environment that promotes collaboration with colleagues. You’ll discover tools that eliminate the need for email attachments, allow you to collaborate with people outside the firewall, and make it easy for you to access your content when you’re on the go. 

The cloud has always been about helping connect people and making them more powerful than they could be on their own. The easier we make it for people to work together - no matter where they are -- the more we can all achieve.