There are already examples as just last week Chevron instructed 300 workers at its London office to work from home in response to an employee returning from Italy with “symptoms”. Governments are also taking action, ordering the cancellation of large gatherings across Europe. Japan has closed schools for a month, and the UK chief medical officer has warned that if the UK is hit by a global pandemic, the same could happen for two months or more which will inevitably result in more parents staying at home. That is not counting an increase in self-quarantine as cases increase daily.
Although technology now makes it possible for remote working, this hasn’t been done at scale, for all employees and especially smaller firms. Even putting aside the deployment of software, hardware and necessary training, can this really work when some are in the office and others are not? The challenge may lie when “desk-side” decision making or water cooler chat are not shared on the digital channels. Other than email (and potentially SMS), many firms have not yet implemented efficient crisis management channels to inform staff should the need occur.
At Qwil Messenger, we have witnessed a sharp increase in usage and requests for our secure client chat platform. In these volatile times, having an efficient and personal tool to manage the high volume of questions from concerned clients has become a competitive advantage for our wealth manager customers. Qwil Messenger has also been used as a crisis management tool to communicate to all staff in a timely manner of the latest developments, establish workgroups and coordinate help that staff may require.
Large firms may have made plans for working from home, but often don’t have a tool that can be deployed in minutes to all staff and external parties with the full security and compliance required, and smaller firms just want a branded “WhatsApp,” an intuitive interface to deploy to their staff and clients, without the need for training and IT support. This is where we come in.
It is too soon to establish whether the coronavirus threat has accelerated the trend of employees working from home, but it has already confirmed the need for firms to implement a secure communication channel between staff, partners and clients. Do join our Webinar on 9th March at 4pm GMT to learn how Qwil Messenger can replace insecure email and non-compliant social chat use and give your business the tool to face the current challenges.
Laurent Guyot is Chief Revenue & Financial Officer Qwil Messenger, responsible for managing the company from the strategy, multiple rounds of financing through to the marketing of the secure chat platform Qwil Messenger. Laurent brings extensive experience in these domains as well as a significant network of financial services contacts across Europe built over 15 years in investment banking at Citigroup, UBS and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Qwil Messenger is a single chat app for everyone, allowing clients of multiple firms to safely engage with their staff representatives within a branded space, fully controlled and coordinated by each firm. Our extensive APIs enable countless automation possibilities (from automating statements, to crisis management) and integration such as AD and Salesforce.
