IT firms roll out solutions to help clients return to office smoothly

WFH-themed solutions aimed at cost saving and better employee management for clients

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to disrupt the way information technology (IT) services providers and their clients operate, these tech firms are coming up with solutions aimed at further reducing costs during work-from-home (WFH) environment and also enabling a smooth transition in case their clients are returning to offices. The pandemic has provided a major boost to digital transformation, making happen in weeks what would have otherwise taken years.

Tata Consultancy Services, for example, has launched a solution called 'Safe Workplace' which assesses the readiness of employees, workplace and the workforce model by evaluating various factors. The Mumbai-headquartered company claims that the solution enables enterprises to jumpstart return-to-work programmes within four weeks and scale support to manage a large set of employees across various locations. It automates return to work processes including contact tracing, shift management and workspace planning apart from supporting collection of feedback through a dashboard.

"By identifying pandemic zonal hotspots and enabling fact-based decision-making, an organisation can also proactively adapt its operations to avoid issues that may affect business as usual," the Tata Group company said. 

Enterprises can also use the solution to improve employee engagement with an automated approach to listening and collecting feedback and guide new hires and furloughed employees through onboarding.

Domestic players such as L&T Infotech and Tech Mahindra and global tech giants like IBM have also come up with solutions to manage both, WFH and the workplace once companies resume operation from offices. 
 

"These products are about helping your clients during the times of crisis by bundling different solutions such as video calling, attendance management, payroll processing and contact tracing apps together that are heterogeneously available at the moment," said Pareekh Jain, an outsourcing advisor and founder of Pareekh Consulting. "It is just one part of digital transformation where IT firms proactively help clients' immediate needs and can be seen as a step towards retaining key clients." 

Tech Mahindra, for instance, has launched a ‘New Age Delivery’ (NAD) platform with a feature to power remote and secure working globally this week. Global technology teams can automate requirement gathering, product backlog fulfilment, plan releases and monitor on one single dashboard through the platform. "The AI-enabled platform is intelligent enough to constantly guide the project teams for the optimum flight path for execution," said Abhijit Lahiri, Head (New Age Delivery), Tech Mahindra. "Apart from the planning and monitoring, the platform also enables the programme team to govern the status of various ongoing programme execution with a digital command centre.”

IBM also developed a new model of technology and service delivery called 'Services Dynamic Delivery' which leverages AI and automation for contactless delivery and enable employees innovate and resolve critical issues with respect to delivery. Similarly, L&T Infotech has introduced 'Canvas', a software engineering platform, to assist ‘work from anywhere’. Based on micro-services architecture and Microsoft products like Azure and Teams, it streamlines process like software development, knowledge management and information security for employees. 

Highlights

TCS: Its Safe Workplace helps assist return-to-work programmes within four weeks, whenever clients are ready. 

Tech Mahindra: New Age Delivery has features to help in daily work management, product backlog fulfillment and optimisation of software planning time 

L&T Infotech: Canvas streamlines process like software development, knowledge management and information security for employees

IBM: Services Dynamic Delivery helps accelerate digital strategies by enterprises and contactless project delivery using AI and automation