From the Digital Office to the Zero Øffice

The current lockdown has highlighted the importance of digitizing our workspaces to ensure business continuity. The Zero Øffice concept, introduced by Proximus NXT, aims to enable employees to work effectively, wherever they may be.

The health crisis we are experiencing has forced companies to completely rethink the way they operate. In just a few days, organizations transformed themselves to enable remote work while ensuring business continuity and protecting their employees.

“All companies had to deal with an unprecedented emergency situation, one that had not previously been considered in their business continuity plans,” explains Sébastien Laurenti, Head of Sales Unit – Unified Collaboration and Video Protection at Proximus NXT. “The first challenge was establishing communication, ensuring that everyone was safe and had the resources needed to maintain connections with the company, colleagues, and customers.”

One of the immediate priorities was to provide employees with the equipment required to work efficiently from home, along with the means to connect and collaborate with their colleagues.

Dematerializing the Workplace

“Once communication channels were established, it became necessary to make the tools and applications required for employees to perform their tasks accessible, while ensuring the security of data and operations,” continues Sébastien Laurenti. “This involves securing connections through solutions such as strong authentication mechanisms, while taking into account the criticality of the services being delivered.”

In just a few days, COVID-19 forced organizations to accelerate their transition toward the Digital Office — in other words, to dematerialize the workplace. But can everything truly be digitized?

“That depends on the company’s level of digital maturity and its line of business,” says Olivier Bertin, Department Manager IT Infrastructure, Applications & Middleware at Proximus NXT. “Today, if an organization is sufficiently advanced in its digital transformation journey, many processes can indeed be digitized and operated remotely.”

The Digital Office concept goes beyond simply providing workstations and collaboration tools such as document-sharing platforms and video conferencing applications. It also requires the adaptation of business processes. In most cases, this means creating workflows that include validation and tracking stages, supported by authentication tools and electronic signature solutions.

From the Digital Office to the Zero Øffice

“Digitizing the workplace cannot be improvised. It is part of a broader transformation process that requires a deep understanding of business activities, an assessment of digital maturity, and the identification of processes that can be successfully digitized,” explains Olivier Bertin.

For some time now, Proximus NXT has been supporting clients through such transformation projects. This often begins with a Modern Workplace Assessment, enabling organizations to better understand the scope of the transformation, or through Proofs of Concept that help validate new approaches before large-scale deployment.

In the current emergency situation, companies have focused on deploying essential tools. Beyond the crisis, however, they may choose to go much further.

“Until now, organizations have relied on Business Continuity Plans and Disaster Recovery Plans,” says Olivier Bertin. “In the future, an additional layer could be added around the concept of the Zero Øffice.”

What Is the Zero Øffice?

The Zero Øffice concept encompasses a range of measures and tools designed to ensure business continuity in situations such as the current crisis. In practical terms, it means enabling users to access corporate resources regardless of the equipment available to them, their role, or their geographic location.

“This goes far beyond traditional, structured teleworking arrangements,” adds Sébastien Laurenti. “The objective is to ensure that everyone can continue working regardless of the circumstances. For example, what happens if an employee’s corporate laptop fails while working remotely? How can a service desk continue operating efficiently during a lockdown? Every scenario requires solutions that combine connectivity, hardware provisioning and management, and cybersecurity.”

Learning from the Crisis

For example, through desktop virtualization technologies, users can securely access their work environment from a family computer. Organizations can also implement self-provisioning processes that automatically install applications on a new laptop as soon as the user authenticates. Likewise, service desks can significantly reduce their workload through the use of chatbots capable of automatically answering frequently asked questions.

“There are countless solutions available,” explains Sébastien Laurenti. “The key is selecting those that best fit the organization’s specific situation and ensuring that they work seamlessly together. We will undoubtedly learn valuable lessons from this crisis. It could significantly accelerate the digital transformation of organizations. It is not unlikely that regulators themselves will require companies to adopt measures that better prepare them for similar situations in the future.”

The partner of tomorrow will be a provider capable of combining a company’s information system with the intelligence of the cloud through an innovative 5G network. Such a partner will be able to deliver and manage software and hardware resources according to users’ needs. Proximus NXT’s development strategy is firmly aligned with this vision, as demonstrated by its ability to maintain operations throughout the pandemic while continuing to support its customers.

Discover all the collaboration tools developed by Proximus NXT, particularly valuable during periods of remote work and confinement:

https://www.proximusnxt.lu/fr/cest-le-moment-de-travailler-ensemble