Remote working and teleconferencing can save costs and improve productivity. Andy McCue talks to the technology directors of four companies that are reaping the rewards. Plus, the top machines for mobile directors

The culture of a fixed nine-to-five, five-days-a-week office job is increasingly being challenged, as people demand a greater work-life balance and more flexibility from their employers. Around 3.1 million people—11 per cent of the UK workforce—are now homeworkers, according to the Office for National Statistics. A homeworker is defined as someone who works mainly from home, or works from different locations using his or her home as a base. As technology evolves, it is easier than ever before for businesses to keep their staff connected, whether they are on the road or at home. In this report we look at how four different organisations have tackled the challenges.

1. Time to power up, up and away

Scheme Mobile working
Used by British Energy
Benefits Allows staff to access crucial systems on their laptop or mobile phone; low-maintenance

The benefits of mobile working were brought home to British Energy this summer when flooding in areas around the company's Gloucester headquarters meant many staff couldn't get in to work.

Not so long ago this could have been a major problem but thanks to a new system—internally called "BE Mobile"—around 1,000 British Energy workers are now able to log on to the corporate network from home or on the road.

"Because the nuclear industry is regulated, it is very tight on security," says British Energy's chief information officer Ian Campbell. "For many years it was just too difficult to do mobile working."

The ability to log on remotely is particularly useful for those staff responsible for running and maintaining the company's one coal-fired and eight nuclear power stations, which together provide a fifth of the UK's energy requirements.

If someone needed to come in to the power station in the past to access the computer systems, it could take several hours—including travel time and the physical security of getting onto the site. "Now it takes 10 minutes. People can use it from home, another office, the airport or a power station," says Campbell.

BE Mobile took about eight months to put in place and was launched in April this year. It is based on Citrix thin—client technology that allows staff to log on securely to the corporate network through an internet browser, using a password. They can use any computer or even a mobile phone.

"That's the beauty of it," says Campbell. "We used to have dedicated, specially built laptops, but the support overhead was too much. We don't have to worry about the support now. You just need an up-to-date version of Internet Explorer and Java and that's it."

There are two levels of access for staff using BE Mobile: silver is for general access to office applications, such as email, while gold is for those who need access to restricted information. Campbell is in no doubt that the demand for more flexible working options from employees will only increase in the future. "Those involved in IT want it and new people joining up want it. We have had zero resistance," he says. His main advice to companies choosing the technology is to make it simple and easy to use.

2. Place your bets on secure connections

Scheme Remote working
Used by Betfair
Benefits Making use of downtime and improving employees' work-life balance

London-based online betting exchange and gaming company Betfair is one of the UK dotcom success stories, having achieved a market valuation of around £1.5bn after just seven years in business. The company has a workforce of around 1,250 people and 450 take advantage of technology that allows them to work from home or on the move.

Thomas Wythe, head of games IS at Betfair, says more new recruits are asking about working flexibly or from home, ahead of salary requirements.
"Home and remote working enable an employee to make greater use of their 'downtime', be more relaxed at the start of a working day and improve the work-life balance—all factors which contribute to productive time when online."

Betfair uses Cisco virtual private network (VPN) software. This provides a secure connection for all employee laptops and PDAs to the corporate network, over an internet connection. It also provides access to most of the systems and applications staff need.

In addition, those employees who need connectivity on the move have Vodafone 3.5G data cards. These also act as a back-up if the fixed-line connection goes down when working from home. Betfair uses voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technology to allow homeworkers to have their work phone extensions routed to their laptops. Avaya Softphone software and Logitech headsets allow people to log on to the office-based telephone network and assume their office extension numbers to make and receive calls, collect voicemail and dial internal extensions as if they were at their desks.

And the increasingly popular BlackBerry is part of the mobile working package at Betfair. "BlackBerry is a massive part of Betfair. Nowadays you get built-in GPS to navigate, full-blown Web browser, mail client, chat client... and you can read PDF and Word documents. You can do 80 per cent of what you do in the office," says Wythe.

Betfair has also started to take advantage of videoconferencing. The company has at least two such systems in each office around the world. Software from Polycom and small webcams enable remote workers to join in. "It works flawlessly," says Wythe.

Bandwidth is the biggest limitation when addressing a mobile or remote working package, according to Wythe. The advent of faster ADSL packages has made it possible to deliver much of what is available on an office local area network into the user's home. "But it's not until very recently," he says, "that 3.5G mobile technologies and the rapid expansion of WiFi have made it possible to be truly remote."

3. Delivering on work-life balance

Scheme Homeworking
Used by Amtrak Express Parcels
Benefits Recruitment and retention

Logistics and delivery company Amtrak Express Parcels is a medium-sized business based in the West Midlands with 1,000 staff. In his previous role as head of IT and operations at Amtrak, Phil Young made the decision to base the entire IT development team of software programmers out of their own homes. Part of the motivation for this was to try and overcome the difficulties faced by a smaller business in holding on to good staff and keeping them happy.

"If you are a smaller company, you're competing with the big boys," explains Young. "You can't pay the salary, but you can offer additional work-life balance to retain staff."

Amtrak opted for a managed service from BT and set up a homeworking package for its seven IT developers, using ADSL lines to their homes. Amtrak paid part of the costs, proportionate to the amount of time the line would be used for work.

"It worked for tax reasons and they got bigger broadband lines," he says.
The laptops and PCs used by the developers were paid for by the company and the main connection to office systems was through virtual private network (VPN) software from Cisco. As an extra layer of security, Amtrak used SecurID key fobs from RSA, which generate one-time PIN numbers to authenticate the person logging on to the system.

Resilience was planned for by using two ADSL lines, but if that failed there was always the old-fashioned contingency plan: "You can always just come in to the office."

Technology is only part of the homeworking equation and managing a remote workforce has its challenges. Young says he managed his team of developers through regular reviews and milestones for project work.
"I couldn't care less whether they are doing work at midnight or during the day. Manage them by objectives," he says.

Physical contact was maintained through team meetings at the office. Some of the developers opted to work one day a week in the office.
Young says the benefits were lower costs, happier staff and less attrition. "Keep it a flexible, informal environment," he advises. "After trying it, I found productivity levels went up."

Enabling a flexible and remote-working environment will be vital for companies looking to recruit and retain the best staff in the future, according to Young. "It's an information world now. It increases the reach of the workforce-you can have the part-timers who can't come in to work. I see the world changing and the attitude of senior executive teams needs to change with it."

4. Breaking down the costs of call centres

Scheme Virtual call centres
Used by AA, Co-operative Travel
Benefits Increased productivity; reductions in staff turnover and absenteeism

While for the past few years the trend in the UK call-centre industry has been to move overseas to low-cost locations such as Bangalore in India, more recently there have been moves to bring things closer to home—literally.

The number of homeworking call-centre agents is on the rise. Industry analyst Datamonitor predicts the number of agents worldwide working more than 20 hours a week from their homes will rise from just under 50,000 now to almost 224,000 within five years.

One company that has embraced this trend is motoring organisation the AA, which runs call centres to service its 15 million roadside breakdown customers and the two million policy-holders for the insurance side of the business.

When a customer phones the AA, he or she could be speaking to someone in an AA call centre or someone sitting at home in front of a PC. The AA first began trialling the use of home-based call-centre workers in 1997 and has steadily expanded the flexible working scheme, citing an increase in productivity, along with lower staff turnover and less absenteeism.

Now the company has about 300 of these teleworkers, who are provided with a special computer at home, directly connected to the AA's network over an ADSL line. It is a thin-client set-up using VMWare, which means the computer is a "dumb" terminal that accesses and processes all the centrally stored information over the ADSL connection.

Trevor Didcock, who has just left the AA as IT director, says: "People will be in their homes with a dedicated workstation that is plugged into the automatic call distribution [system]."

Another big user of homeworkers is Co-operative Travel, whose virtual call centre consists of a network of more than 600 home-based agents, who work on a self-employed basis with administrative and marketing support provided by the company. The agents must work a minimum of 30 hours a week. They receive 30 per cent of the commission on any bookings they take. A PC, printer, modem, phone, software, internet and email access and ADSL or broadband are all provided.

The main industry sectors embracing the home call-centre agent model are healthcare, insurance, technology, tourism and travel. Peter Ryan, senior analyst for contact centre outsourcing and offshoring at Datamonitor, says: "It is clear home agents are no longer a passing fancy, and are rapidly becoming mainstream."

Big-screen bonus

Increases in bandwidth and picture quality mean videoconferencing is now a viable alternative and environmental concerns and the pressure to reduce travel bills are forcing smaller firms to explore the options

Research from technology industry analyst Frost & Sullivan shows the market for the most expensive videoconferencing equipment will reach $409.6m (£200.8m) by 2013, as more businesses turn to virtual meetings.

IT company Cisco makes one of the most expensive products on the market, called Telepresence. It has used this technology internally for more than 10,000 meetings and claims to have slashed $150m (£74m) off its corporate travel costs in the process.

BT also claims to have slashed its carbon footprint by almost 100,000 tonnes of CO2 a year-a 15 per cent reduction—through a combination of phone calls and videoconferencing to cut down travel.

Cisco's Telepresence and the rival Halo product from HP both use large, high-definition displays in specially built rooms where everyone appears life-size around a virtual table. Directional microphones project each person's voice from his or her on-screen image.

But these high-end, high-tech products don't come cheap. Each Cisco Telepresence room costs around £150,000 plus telecoms costs, while HP's Halo costs £287,000 a room plus an additional £10,000 a month service fee.

Despite the price, such technology isn't out of the reach of businesses with shallower pockets. Managed office space company Regus is planning to put Cisco's Telepresence in 50 of its sites. The videoconferencing suites will be made available to Regus customers primarily in the SME market for a price expected to be in the region of £150 to £250 per hour.

For those not in need of such high-quality facilities, there is a range of cheaper options in the market. Rob Bamforth, technology analyst at research company Quocirca, says: "The technology, bandwidth, video and sound have all improved dramatically. There is a huge spectrum of opportunity, from the Regus type of managed service right down to simple add-ons to desktop PCs."

These include products from companies such as Avistar, Polycom and Tandberg, or managed videoconferencing services from companies such as Genesys, where the facility can be rented by the call or by the month.

For situations where quality is not such an issue, there is an even cheaper alternative: using a £15 Logitech camera from a PC shop. Bamforth says: "It's not great quality, but for £40 you can get one that's pretty good. I use Skype and a £40 camera."

With such a wide range of price options, videoconferencing is no longer just for big business, and the environmental pressures from customers and investors are only going to increase.

When in roam: six mobile devices for directors on the go

The Nokia N95 8GB
You may have an N95, but it's unlikely you've got one of these 8GB models, because they aren't shipping yet. Expect the usual N95 stuff (5 megapixel camera, WiFi, GPS, microSD), plus better SatNav, a bigger screen, Flash for your media and 8GB of internal storage. Email lets you view attachments, such as Office files and PDFs.

Sony Ericsson K630i
Another HSDPA phone, meaning extra-fast 3G wherever it's available. On the upside, this phone is some 30-odd grams lighter than the N95 8GB. With Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync pre-loaded it mirrors your PC desktop, so you get access to your websites applications, and email. No QWERTY keypad, but otherwise this is a decent-looking and performing phone.

Nokia E51
It will turn no heads for its looks, but as you download data over a turbo-boosted HSDPA connection, or make cheap calls via WiFi, your smug smile might get noticed. Like all the E series, you can integrate it with your office phone system. Coming soon at about €350 (£245)-less on your operator's business data plan.

Palm 500v
Does the business stuff without marking you out as a suit. It's small for a Treo and the QWERTY keyboard is too compressed for some. For Vodafone Business customers, contract prices range from free to £85.11.

BlackBerry 9000
According to unreliable internet rumour, the next BlackBerry after this year's disappointingly received 8800 will be touchscreen and HSDPA-enabled, with a 600MHz processor. One to watch.

HTC TyTN II
Available as the T-Mobile Vario III. With GPS SatNav, WiFi, HSDPA, and a touchscreen interface. As you'd expect from a Windows Mobile 6.0 device, you've got support for email and IM, as well as Microsoft Office. Despite all this, with the right contract this handset will only set you back £39.99.

Keith Dyer