A number of digital platform providers including Microsoft and Zoom have seen a significant surge in uptake particularly within China, Italy and the U.S due to the rising threat of the coronavirus. Businesses across the globe are instructing employees to work from home as governments implement measures to reduce the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Many workplaces are expecting isolated measures to be enforced for extended periods and are looking towards new technology platforms to ensure their employees can continue to work efficiently from home.

In areas experiencing major outbreaks, digital enterprises have already had to cope with a significant influx of new members using cloud platforms and SaaS systems to work from home.

Despite rising demand, industry experts have emphasised that there are no concerns that the internet will collapse, however, the situation could be location dependant. Response times will vary depending largely on the network infrastructure

Business preparation

Leading CRM software business Zendesk believes that many digital-focused companies already tend to operate in a way that fits the style of a remote workforce. Zendesk remains confident that its infrastructure is capable of providing the necessary support for its customers and employees regardless of the location.

Zendesk has a global workforce and many of their meetings regularly involve video calls for some employees. The CRM leader reiterates that businesses need to consider added support for their employees and remember that working remotely does come with certain challenges. Industry professionals believe that areas that have developed strong infrastructure are likely to handle this surge of new traffic. 

The number of new users for vide0 meetings cloud services has risen dramatically in the last month, with an increased number of new businesses adopting these platforms. The systems provide the flexibility and ability to support a range of varied workloads. One of the core benefits of modern cloud infrastructure is the capability to scale automatically depending on the levels of demand. This auto-scaling feature enables businesses to quickly launch new services and the capacity to support fluctuations in new users and traffic.

Industry professionals believe that if work and travel restrictions continue to impact the demand for SaaS products, many providers, such as Dropbox and Salesforce will be prepared as they have adopted a data-focused approach to infrastructure management and application traffic that enables them to utilise the flexibility that cloud can provide.

Using real time data concerning network and resource availability enables them to control their resources and maintain reliable and effective performance levels. Realtime analytics combined with real application data provides technology teams with the information to manage workloads between their resources as demand continues to fluctuate.

Industry experts suggest that enterprises should consider introducing new infrastructure to manage resource use and monitor potential problems associated with traffic spikes or to implement measures to manage capacity concerns in certain locations