Working From Home 

The home office is not a new idea - a lucky few have had that option for many years - but it's a concept which has taken off in recent times. Today there is a host of reasons to work from home:

• family time
• traffic congestion
• sea change/tree change lifestyles
• increased productivity through fewer interruptions
• globalisation/working across time zones
• environmental/carbon footprint concerns
• reduced housing affordability near cities

and many more.

The range of people working from home has also broadened substantially:

• start-up businesses
• telemarketers/call centre agents
• mothers working part time
• corporate and SME (Small Medium Enterprise) staff working from home on some days
• web and graphic designers
• remote sales personnel
• remote service personnel
• one person contracting companies

and many other interesting roles help build a picture of a modern way to work and live that is fast gaining in popularity.

Internet Broadband

Perhaps the key enabling technology behind the rise of home offices is reliable and affordable broadband Internet. For a few tens of dollars per month, home-based workers can access high speed broadband of similar quality to that used in large corporate offices. Today very few types of home office can function without a reliable broadband connection.

Building The Case For Teleworking

Despite the growing popularity of home offices, many employers remain unconvinced about the merits of allowing their staff to "telework". While there are a range of common objections raised by employers, a number of them focus on the I.T. challenges: technical requirements of providing remote access to staff working at home; difficulty of providing technical support to home-based staff; risks of security breaches or virus infection from allowing home PCs to connect to the company network. Fortunately these are all readily eliminated by using the I.T. on Tap service.

Protecting Your Productivity

One of the reasons why many people choose to work from home is because their productivity is higher when they're away from the interruptions and distractions of a corporate office. If you've had even a single day working from home you'll appreciate the benefits of having even a few quiet hours of time to focus exclusively on the task at hand.

Computer hassles can be a major enemy of productivity in the home office. It's difficult to maintain your home PC as effectively as your corporate I.T. department manages the computers in head office, so downtime and service interruptions are more likely. Unless your company has a sophisticated remote access/Virtual Private Network (VPN) solution in place, you may find that you're not able to access the full range of software and data from home that you can in the office.

When you do have technical problems, usually you're on your own: there's no in-house I.T. department, so you'll find yourself calling for phone support or waiting for a contractor to arrive and repair the problem. Both options are distracting and time-consuming.

Home-Based Businesses

If you own a home-based business you may be concerned about presenting a professional and reliable image to your clients and prospects. Although home-based businesses are becoming more common, some traditional businesspeople still retain concerns about the credibility of home-based businesses as suppliers and contractors.

It's important to allay such concerns as much as possible, to prevent them being a barrier to sales. I.T. on Tap can assist in one key area: ensuring that you have reliable, effective and fully-supported I.T. systems on which to run your business. In fact, you may find that you have more flexible and cost-effective I.T. systems than many of your customers in mid to large sized companies. When they start asking you for I.T. advice, you know you've achieved un-shakeable credibility in their eyes!

For the first time, home-based businesses with as few as 1 employee can now benefit from the same level of I.T. capabilities and resources that large companies take for granted. By eliminating any need to buy hardware or hire consultants, I.T. on Tap makes it affordable for even the smallest businesses to make themselves competitive and productive through intelligent use of I.T. systems.

Access While You're On The Road 

For all the advantages of home-based offices, location is not usually one of them! Most home-based workers find they need to travel regularly, often to visit clients or partners. How can you access your I.T. systems and work productively when you're away from your home office?

The traditional approach has been: keep everything on a laptop and lug it around with you. There are several obvious drawbacks including:

• the inconvenience of needing to carry your laptop everywhere
   
• the risk of business disruption if your laptop is lost, stolen or damaged and all your data becomes inaccessible
   
• the technical challenge of getting your laptop connected to the Internet in whatever building you are visiting on the day
   
• the difficulty of collaborating with your employees or colleagues back in your home office, including maintaining access for everyone to your company files, databases and emails.

I.T. on Tap offers a far more convenient alternative: just log on as per normal from a web browser on any Internet-connected PC.

If you're working at a client site for the day, organise to use one of their PCs. You can be sure they'll have at least one person on leave, off sick or away from the office - ask to borrow their desk and explain that no setup is required, you only need to use a web browser. You'll be able to work exactly as you normally do, and even print to any nearby printers configured on that PC - something which you can't easily do when you bring your own laptop.

When you're away from your office for meetings, in between times you can work from a PC in an Internet cafe or the business centre of your hotel. The cost is likely just a few dollars per hour, and you can leave your laptop at home for the day!

Since you're accessing and using your normal I.T. systems, collaborating with colleagues back in the home office (or elsewhere) is just as easy as it would be if you were sitting next to them.

Getting Started

The very best way to judge the I.T. on Tap service is to try it out for yourself! Once you've tested the service we think you'll find it ideal for use in your home office.