HOW EU SCALEUPS HELP ON REMOTE WORKING

At present, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is disrupting both society and economies across the world. As a leading organisation for digital innovation and entrepreneurship, EIT Digital is committed to support the pan-European ecosystem to find effective solutions in dealing with the pandemic's societal and economic effects and implications. The HealthTech focused scaleups EIT Digital supports can be found in this article.

ENSURING BUSINESS CONTINUITY TO STIMULATE THE ECONOMY

Creating a Remote Workforce Quickly & Efficiently

As countries around the world close non-essential businesses, many companies are scrambling to digitalise their workforce and move operations into the Cloud. Over the last couple of weeks, IT companies have transitioned thousands of employees to remote working.

While remote working is typically associated with 30% to 40% greater productivity, this isn’t necessarily the case when employees are not used to working from home or the right systems are not in place.

Digital technology companies like Bloola help businesses digitise their organisation with centralised communication, collaboration and task management tools. Centralising essential processes, like communication, marketing and sales, makes it easier for employees to stay up-to-date and gives managers control over employees’ workloads.

Bloola is currently offering free onboarding support and a 60-day trial to help companies remain operational.

Another technology company helping businesses transition to remote working is Austrian Grape.io, a remote communications and operations tool. Grape.io integrates with market-leading tools and legacy software to ensure companies can remain productive and efficient. Their communication tool is free for small businesses (less than ten users).

KEEPING BUSINESSES RUNNING WITH DIGITAL SERVICES

With the massive surge in online traffic, caused by the increasing Internet usage, many digital services have experienced crashes and slowdowns. Moreover, in response to the crisis many applications and features were developed and launched in a hurry, which exacerbated the performance issues. That’s why Gatling is offering free load-testing for any company or administration involved in education, health, and remote work in the fight against COVID-19.

Some companies, rather than launching a new digital service, are leveraging technology to continue operations. For example, manufacturers are using solutions like Oculavis to conduct remote service maintenance on industrial machines so technicians and engineers can continue to work from home. Oculavis’ software SHARE works on tablets and smartphones and uses smart glasses and augmented reality to connect technicians on the factory site with the maintenance experts remotely.

Network providers are also facing numerous challenges. Normally they send hundreds of technicians out for daily maintenance of Internet and TV access points for commercial and private clients. As many service technicians fall ill, some telecom operators started to send Oculavis’ remote maintenance kits to the clients directly. Equipped with smart glasses (disinfected after every use) and an app, clients are guided by a service specialist to fix the network issues themselves.

Oculavis currently offers 10 free licenses for 6 weeks.

Small business owners that used to deliver paper-based financial documents to their accountants can no longer do that for health safety reasons. Thus, moving to electronic document exchange is becoming more crucial than ever.

CashDirector enables banks to offer their micro and small business customers a free platform that enables a remote and secure exchange of invoices and documents with their accountant. The platform supports photo capture of invoices through a mobile device with automatic upload to the platform; upload of scanned invoices and documents; secure, password enabled access by the accountant; invoice booking workflow and other key features.

Financial institutions can offer this service to SMEs within 48 hours, with their own branding and without any IT integration required.

STAY TUNED

If you would like more information about any of the companies featured in this article, or the technologies discussed please sent me a Linkedin invite.

As the global situation continues to evolve, more challenges caused by the COVID-19 impact will arise. We will continue monitoring scaleups from the EIT Digital Accelerator portfolio that address the new challenges and offer their expertise to support the ecosystem.

EIT Digital Accelerator provides tailor-made growth support for European tech scaleups by helping secure international customers and raise capital. The Accelerator team comprises over 30 experienced business developers and finance experts operating from 17 cities across Europe, along with a hub in Silicon Valley. Since 2012, they have supported 300+ companies who raised over €900 million in investment.