The next source of infection?

As the Omicron variant of Covid-19 spreads, many are trying to stay safe and keep hopes of Christmas with family alive. While much rests on the success of the vaccine booster campaign - I am thankful to have had mine this weekend – the news is full of fears over the increased transmissibility of the virus.

I started last week’s article looking at the wider challenges that organisations face as we approach the New Year, and I identified inflationary pressures and a difficult economic environment. I showed how organisations can unlock greater value in the bid to meet these pressures.

It goes without saying, however, that surges in Covid-19 infections will continue to present real challenges for society, business and individuals. The emergence of new virus variations should be expected for years to come, with seasonal booster vaccinations and ‘circuit breakers’ used to manage them.

New ways of working

At the same time, if vaccination and social distancing measures are to become the norm, so too will the new ways that organisations are being run. I have written before about the increasing digitisation of businesses large and small, as they rush to embrace technology such as the cloud that allow them to do things remotely, be more resilient in the face of labour disruption, and gain greater access to the data that underpins their operations.

Digitisation provides an immediate means for businesses to gain efficiencies and boost productivity at a time when the economic climate presents real challenges. It is a means of delivering value when it’s really needed.

Covid, of course, has spurred digitisation. By 2024, IDC believes that enterprises with “intelligent and collaborative work environments” built around digitisation can expect to see 30% lower staff turnover, 30% higher productivity and 30% higher revenue per employee than their peers.

The increasing automation of key functions, the adoption of ‘as a service’ business models and the move to the cloud are irreversible moves, in my opinion, and will become known as a feature of this age in the same way that the facemask has become iconic. It is nothing less than revolutionary.

Another virus?

That said, it is not without its own challenges. As digitisation is embedded deeper into organisations, viral activity of a different sort must be addressed: threats and vulnerabilities in systems must be mitigated

This week cyber-security officials have ordered all US federal agencies to protect their systems against a major computer vulnerability, the so-called Log4Shell vulnerability, by Christmas Eve.

An open-source Java logging library developed by the Apache Foundation, Log4Shell is widely used in many computing applications at an enterprise level. Security experts have called Log4shell “one of the most serious security flaws” in the past decade. The National Cyber Security Council is advising organisations to take steps to mitigate the vulnerability, and its essential that organisations do so.

At Reliance High-Tech, we are already on top of the situation. Our customers trust us to be ahead of these vulnerabilities and ensure the integrity of their systems is maintained at all times. They rely on us to update their systems beyond ensuring core functionality, to fully protect their people, assets and, operations and, ultimately, reputations.

Organisations that don’t take their cyber security seriously, however, are placing themselves at great risk as digitisation continues to transform the way they do business. In the same way that a microscopic coronavirus has revealed gaps in public health systems across the world, businesses must not wait until infection strikes before they act to make their systems secure.

Contact Reliance High-Tech to find out how this can be easily achieved.

Stay safe!