Over the past few weeks, we have taken the Modern Workplace to the next level! Proving the concept of a Modern Workplace using tools that enable work from anywhere, anytime, on any device, has been enormously satisfying. Some highlights have been our virtual Friday night drinks with the team and making a very successful switch to a new Teams based phone system.

The levels of lockdown have taught us all to be more dynamic, learning to adapt to a rapidly changing world. With the specifics of a new level being released only days before the transition, we had to act quickly. For us, that meant assisting businesses transition to a 100% working from home model or deploying an e-commerce platform in under 24 hours. We were proud when many of our clients were able to make these adjustments to their business models with minimal disruption, and how employees adopted the new technology.

At level 2, we are all taking a breath and getting a much-needed haircut, whilst looking at how we can support our clients with new contact tracing systems. We anticipate that these systems will need to be in-place for some time and have been encouraged by how easy it can be setting up a robust system from the box tools in the Office 365 suite. Many of our manufacturing and retail sector clients have deployed simple, yet effective solutions (created using Microsoft Power Apps, Forms and SharePoint) that meet compliance requirements and augment workplace health and safety processes.

While most of our team are slowly migrating back to the office, we are looking forward to Level-1 when the entire team is again part of the daily office banter.

-Team At Yorb

News Update

Recovery to reality

Business Blog

Covid-19 has created uncertainty for large and small businesses across New Zealand. We have all been moving through the crisis stages (with the initial Response followed by Resiliency and Recovery) it’s now time to consider what the new Reality might be. Read our Blog Recovery to Reality where we will discuss some proactive ideas that aim to inspire strategic decision making during these unprecedented times.

New Microsoft Data Centre opens new business opportunities

Microsoft and the government recently made media headlines with the announcement that Microsoft would be opening their first New Zealand datacentre. The potential impact of this to the New Zealand Cloud computing market cannot be understated. Setting up a datacentre is a massive investment, even a company the size of Microsoft does not make these investments lightly. But what benefits will a new local datacentre bring to us, given many of us already use Office 365 and other Azure services hosted in Australia without apparent issue?

• Data Sovereignty: Although for the most part storing data in Australia has been widely accepted as ok, there have still been lingering concerns in some quarters. These issues will finally be put to bed.
• Performance & Reliability: Although uncommon, speed and reliability issues do occasionally raise their head. An in-country fibre link will prevent your teenagers slowing down your Office 365 whenever they start gaming with their friends in Oz.
• New Opportunities: Many legacy applications, as well as new AI and big data systems, require super-fast low latency connections. This has meant leaving critical line of business applications on-premises or stifling our creative juices, as we simply could not process large quantities data into the Cloud at scale at a cost-effective rate.

The new datacentre is unlikely to be operational for some time, we will bring you more information as it becomes available.

Keeping your Data safe

Phishing scams in New Zealand

Not enough businesses are aware of the damage that cyber criminals are capable of. We have seen an increase in Phishing reports over the last three weeks and we want to do our best to protect you from becoming the next victim. Here are a few key things you must know.

Call us to secure your business

Securing your data is important to us, and we want to ensure every business is making informed decisions regarding how best to protect you and your staff. If you are made aware of these threats, then you are one step closer to protecting your company data. If you are not undertaking regular security training with your staff, or have not yet enabled multi-factor authentication systems, then you are exposing yourself to increased risk. Please give us a call for more information

Modern Workplace

Microsoft Teams Case Study

Understanding that adopting a work-from-home based employment system could be a possibility for our future, Yorb has recently collaborated with Hachiko and Microsoft on a case study focusing on the integration of Microsoft Teams as a key contributor to internal communications. We will share more on this in the coming weeks.