Flexible working: Is outsourcing the answer?

Terms like ADSL, GPRS and 802.11x may be a mouthful, but they can also be a headache for businesses.

The increasing availability and take-up of these high-speed connectivity methods is helping to create a nation of IT-aware employees who realise they don't have to be seated at their desk in order to get things done.

A network manager who once only had the local area network to monitor and protect now must adjust to users logging on from pretty much anywhere.

Spending on connectivity can rocket as users rack up mobile phone bills and invoice for home broadband. Management stare out at empty desks, and worry that staff can't be trusted to work hard without 'supervision'.

But putting a block on flexible working wouldn't be sensible, as few companies can afford to spurn the likely productivity benefits. Instead, IT departments are being targeted by several telecoms and IT services firms offering packages to give users access to the corporate network across a slew of access methods.

One such firm is BT. It claims that its Mobile Office service -- launched this summer -- simplifies the challenge of flexible working and can actually make life better for end-users and IT administrators.

"Flexible working is about doing things that I do in the office from anywhere, such as corporate email or network-based applications" says Dave Hughes, chief executive for wireless broadband at BT. "Mobile Office means happier staff, because they can operate effectively without having to be at their desks, it saves businesses money and it means they work more effectively."

With Mobile Office, individual employees are given access to the appropriate connectivity methods that match their working lifestyle. A teleworker would get a consumer DSL connection at their home, while a nomadic worker would be equipped with GPRS and Wi-Fi to allow them to link to the office when out and about.

"Our product takes all these different network access technologies and wraps them together. The IT department can then assign each employee with the right access technology. The company just gets one bill, and the network traffic is channelled through one totally secure gateway," Hughes explains.

Redstone Communications is another company that is targeting flexible working as a growth area. It has just launched a range of products and services branded with the 'Remote Worker' label.

These products combine IP VPN connectivity, broadband, wireless, filtering, remote management, support and other services, and Redstone is targeting home workers, business travellers and road warriors.

Redstone believes that the principal handicap to the take-up of flexible working is that many firms just don't have a sufficiently strong and secure IT infrastructure to support it.

Despite this, it predicts that teleworker numbers could double over the next six years.

But before jumping on board, it's important to be clear about how flexible working will benefit your firm, because it doesn't come particularly cheap.

BT's Mobile Office starts with a one-off 'corporate integration fee' of £3,640 plus £30 for each user. There's then a monthly charge of £15 per user per month. This is before the actual cost of connectivity -- and all that DSL, GPRS and Wi-Fi can soon add up to a significant increase in spending.

BT says though, that a company can make big savings by outsourcing its flexible working, rather than buying and setting up the necessary security and connectivity systems itself. It claims that a company that wants to allow 100 users to work flexibly will save £30,000 in the first year by going with Mobile Office, and over £12,000 in subsequent years.

Such figures should always be approached cautiously, of course. Either way, the cost of bringing in a flexible working policy will look like small change if you manage to shut down an office or two on the back of it, as one early Mobile Office customer has managed.