COVID-19: Businesses Archive

AT&T & IBM Powering Remote Work for Health Care Experts Studying the Coronavirus

Researchers and health professionals at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) are working with global health experts to study COVID-19. AT&T and IBM are providing the NHLBI a cloud-based virtual desktop solution that allows NHLBI workers to easily and more securely access and share vital research while working remotely to help contain the spread of the virus. The solution can support up to 600 remote workers concurrently. It includes AT&T virtual private networking for fast, highly secure access to the IBM Cloud for Government. It supports easy and fast user authentication while meeting federal government requirements for data, system and network security.

We are in uncharted territory – what seemed routine a few short weeks ago – commuting to work, going to the gym, or gathering with friends – is now either a daunting task or a non-existent option. Given the rapid move for many to work from home, organizations have either been scrambling to quickly roll out solutions to keep employees connected or relying upon their contingency plan in place. Protecting your organization and its suddenly remote workforce is essential. Consider these immediate security needs and whether your solutions and services are resilient. Check out this blog from AT&T Cybersecurity’s President & CEO Barmak Meftah. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the value of automated robotics sharply into focus. Today we announced two prime examples of how AT&T Internet of Things cellular connectivity is playing a role. We’re working with XENEX to connect their LightStrike™ Germ-Zapping Robots™ that use intense UV light to deactivate deadly pathogens and help hospitals fight infections and save lives; to see this full release click here. With Brain Corp, we’re helping to enable robotics for cleaning, inventory delivery, and shelf-analytics for retailers and other essential businesses; see this full release here. These are clear examples of how IoT can play a role in meeting society’s needs and urgent challenges.

Anne Chow, CEO, AT&T Business Joins Conversations with Dez Podcast to discuss network preparedness, what we’re hearing from customers and how we’ve responded to the COVID-19 pandemic across industries, including those on the front lines.

Listen Here >>

The connectivity and solutions we provide to our customers have never been more critical – whether it be hospitals, medical facilities, utilities, food and beverage industry, government entities, financial institutions, K-12 and higher education, any other business or employees working from home. Our dedicated Global Operations & Service team in AT&T Business has pulled off some amazing feats to support our customers.

To keep our customers connected and complement our product offers, we’ve launched six new Command Centers that are enabling the fast delivery of increased bandwidth, new circuits and unified communication services. This will help enable working from home and support the smooth functioning of institutions that are experiencing a significant increase in data and voice traffic.  

Our teams are utilizing our own unified communication and borderless collaboration tools.

To highlight three of the six command centers:

1. Delivery Command Center - AT&T Core Network

Our network is at the core of everything we do and it is during times like these when it matters the most. To that end, this command center has been established to handle higher demands across our infrastructure. As demands on the network continually evolve, AT&T is confident this structure will keep our network strong as needs evolve.

2. Delivery Command Center - Customer Needs                  

This structure is designed to organize all delivery functions across AT&T to expedite critical customer orders with high priority work volumes. Within one week, our teams have already completed hundreds of COVID-19-related customer orders across multiple industry segments. This effort is proving vital to not only our customers, but to the functioning of our society in these critical times.

3. Incident Command Center

Customers and businesses will all be impacted in some way during the COVID-19 pandemic. This command center has been established recognizing that vital customer incidents will need restoration faster than ever before. This center will prioritize incidences with Telecommunications Service Priority (TSP) indicators above all else.

These are truly unprecedented times.

We recognize that no business will be left untouched by this pandemic. No matter if you’re expanding bandwidth, redeploying employees or needing additional products and services, we’ve established the mechanisms to help you meet your business objectives.

These command centers are a true reflection of people, process, technology and culture coming together. Our team is dedicated around-the-clock, prepared to execute with excellent and seamless collaboration across Delivery, Sales and Technology ecosystems. 

Technology supports our people.

We’re using collaboration tools to provide real-time status updates. We deployed a full automation framework using BOTs and other automation to speed up order intake, triage, delivery activity based on priority request. The BOTs launch a virtual command and control room and invite key stakeholders to collaborate in real time.

We’re doing this while prioritizing the health and safety of our employees. We’re constantly working to stay ahead and respond as the situation evolves.

Does COVID-19 + BAU = WFH? Get prepared with the right communications tools.

For more information and resources to help keep your business running during the unpredictable, please visit AT&T Business Continuity here.

The unprecedented global health crisis has a growing number of businesses taking drastic measures to help ensure the health and safety of their employees. Large-scale work-from-home (WFH) policies are now commonplace with hopes of social distancing to halt the spread of COVID-19.

Addressing the risk to people, families and communities is paramount. We also understand there is significant risk to the financial health of businesses. A prolonged interruption in operations could be significant to many organizations. Even with a workforce that’s suddenly more decentralized, in many cases businesses must attempt to continue to operate as predictably as possible, even amidst the unpredictability of the current environment.  

Many businesses today are familiar with the latest technologies enabling employees to work from nearly anywhere and from any device. But for some, we realize they may find challenges in maintaining not just productivity, but also collaboration and even culture during a prolonged pause to normal office life as we know it – even with all the tools readily available.

As more organizations institute work-from-home policies, we want to emphasize to that our connectivity tools provide the capabilities to enhance the virtual work experience. Below are five tools and tips that your business may already be using to help ease the challenge of working and collaborating from anywhere.

Addressing Security Risks: Possibly the most significant risk related to the work-from-home policies is the effect it could have on cybersecurity. Enable secure access for employees to corporate networks, applications and servers through a VPN. Also, remind employees about your organization’s cybersecurity policies. It’s easier to become complacent at home, and virus-related scams have already been making the rounds.

Putting Faces to Names: It’s easy to become detached if colleagues slowly become words in an email or a voice on the other end of the phone. Enable your workforce with collaboration tools with built-in videoconferencing capabilities and encourage them to connect with each other “face-to-face.”

Reaching You No Matter the Number: How easy is it for customers or others outside your organization to reach you by phone? If teams are out of the office for an extended period of time, calls can get lost in the shuffle quickly. Many enterprise phone services offer simple call forwarding or even the ability to unify phone numbers to a designated device.

Setting Up Living Chat Rooms: Much of what’s most enjoyable about office life is defined by the informal and unplanned interactions where employees can bounce ideas off one another and build camaraderie with colleagues. By creating a space specifically for impromptu discussions, you can help working groups stay more engaged with tasks and collaborate with each other.

Communication Is KEY: We can’t lose sight of our connection to each other. The focus on simply communicating one-on-one and across workgroups while building relationships is a must! Without the ability to meet and spend time in person, get creative. We’ve got to make that extra effort to consciously reach out and collaborate, harnessing the power of the abundant technology and solutions that are available to us. Success depends on creating and sustaining an open dialogue as well as keeping the virtual door always open. Each and all of us have to work with greater purpose to develop and sustain our connections with people – whether it be our colleagues, customers, partners, suppliers and all stakeholders – to ensure ongoing alignment and constructive progress. Feedback will be even more critical during these times – so keep it coming!

Stay well and stay connected!