E-commuting is term used to describe the work arrangement in which employees work from home or outside the office (Redmond, 2018). Rather than having employees travel from home to work daily, they would rather work from home through internet enabled services and workstations that organizations provide to their employees. Over a decade ago, working from home seemed like a distant ream but today, it is the future of work. The advantages of working from home include: improving productivity, keeping older generations in the workforce, it’s better for one’s health and the environment, decreasing overhead costs for organizations and reducing employee turnover (Redmond, 2018).
The virtual will make use of the Google Pixel 3 XL (Swider, 2018). The Google Pixel 3 XL is packed with a big screen and the best camera that will be used by team in stunning taking photos of the 3D printers that the team will be responsible for designing and manufacturing. The Pixel 3 XL runs on android 9.0 pie (Swider, 2018). The Dell XPS 13 9370 is the recommended laptop that will be used by the virtual team when working from home (Osborne, 2018). The XPS 13 comes fully with an Intel Core i7, 8 th generation CPU, Windows 10 Enterprise, 16Gb of Ram and a 256GB SSD for performance (Osborne, 2018). What makes the Dell XPS 13 standout is that its lightweight, borderless display and its sleet aesthetic. When compared to the MacBook, the XPS 13 is more powerful by some distance as they also rival in price. The XPS 13 has remained the all-time favorite windows laptop since it was released in 2015. Other than the laptop being powerful, it is also light weight coming in at 2.67 pounds meaning that it is easier to carry around (Osborne, 2018). Windows 10 Enterprise is the default operating system that will run on all the virtual teams’ computers. Windows 10 Enterprise was primarily built for businesses of any size (large and midsized companies). The unique features that come packed with Windows 10 Enterprise include:
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Desktop analytics device health (Redmond, 2018).
Windows defender application guard (Redmond, 2018).
Windows defender credential guard (Redmond, 2018).
Windows defender advanced threat protection (Redmond, 2018).
The Dell XPS 13 and Google Pixel 3 XL are the best devices for company because they are high performing devices and even though they require a high initial cost investment, the company will not be purchasing any new devices for the next 5 years (Osborne, 2018). Even though new and powerful devices are introduced on a yearly basis. The Pixel 3 XL and the XPS 13 will still stand out among new devices not unless the company introduces new software that will require an upgrade in hardware for the virtual teams. What makes these devices best fit s that, once a new device is introduced with similar or better quality, the vendor has the allowed the company to trade in these devices for new ones.
When it comes to business applications, Microsoft Office is the preferred software application (Curry, 2016). Today, Office 365 is the productivity suite that Microsoft Corporation would want businesses buy based on a monthly subscription. When purchased, the company will have access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, OneDrive, Access, Skype for Business and Publisher (Curry, 2016). For email, calendar and contacts, the company will have access to Microsoft Outlook, teleconferencing software will be Skype for business and teams, collaboration the company will have Microsoft SharePoint Online with OneDrive as the main repository for documents (Curry, 2016). Microsoft Project software is the tool that will be used for project budgeting and scheduling, reporting which can be deployed both on-premise and on the cloud. The cloud version will allow project managers to collaborate with the virtual team remotely (Curry, 2016).
Securing company data for the virtual team is key to protect all the intellectual property that the team may be in contact with. Various components of Microsoft Azure will be used in protecting company data (Mackie, 2015). Azure Active Directory will be used in managing all the remote devices, the Intune blade in Azure, and the mobile device management will used to push polices that will either allow or disallow users to have read or write permissions. The Windows Information Protection Policy will be used to differentiate between work and personal documents as well as the Windows Defender Application Guard will be used to protect the team’s devices from untrusted sites by opening them in a virtualized window (Mackie, 2015).
Hardware and Software Requirements
To support the work of the virtual teams’ usability and technical issues, the IT department will develop a knowledgebase that will be accessible from the company’s website. The portal will be developed using Microsoft SharePoint sites and users will be authenticated with their username and password and the department in which the user is assigned to. The portal will consist of a self-service section that users can use to submit support tickets in case they’re experiencing any issues with their devices. The portal will have a frequently asked questions sections where issues such as activation, network and email issues will be addressed. The user portal will also have a forum section where the virtual team can post their issues and other members from the community with the technical know-how can give solutions instead of waiting on the IT department to work on a ticket submitted. This will ensure high productivity of the virtual team in regard to the execution of their tasks. Zabbix is an open source solution that will be used in the monitoring networks, servers and applications. For the entire company network, Zabbix will be responsible for monitoring network performance issues such as bandwidth usage, high CPU or memory utilization applications, network health such the when the disk space is low, when the links supporting critical applications are down, and configuration changes such as when and if a device has been remove, firmware has been upgrade or any network module had been added replaced or removed. Zabbix will also be responsible for monitoring sever performance, availability and configuration changes across the entire organization. All business applications and services such as active directory, antivirus software, CRM, virtual machines, telephony, email and operating systems will be monitored by Zabbix. This will ensure that all the important updates and software/security patches in both the servers and employee devices are up to date.
To reduce costs and improve the uptime, all servers and applications will be hosted on Microsoft Azure apart from application software that will be installed on the workstations. For the IT team that will be responsible for supporting all remote workers will make use of the HP ProDesk 400 G5 Core i7-8500, 32GB of RAM, 2TB SSD, Windows 10 Enterprise Desktop PC. Software applications that will be in use are the Microsoft Dynamics CRM that includes modules such as sales, customer service, field service, finance and operations, project service automation and artificial intelligence, and Microsoft Power BI for getting insights from the data derived from all the external employees all in one view.
References
Curry, B. (2016). From IT Pro to Cloud Pro Microsoft Office 365 and SharePoint Online . Washington: Microsoft Press.
Mackie, K. (2015, January 6). Microsoft Details Azure Active Directory MDM Scenarios in Windows 10 . MCPMag. Retrieved https://mcpmag.com/articles/2015/06/01/ad-mdm-scenarios-in-windows-10.aspx .
Osborne, J. (2018, December 12 ). Dell XPS 13 review: Making the best laptop in the world even better . TechRadar. Retrieved from https://www.techradar.com/uk/reviews/pc-mac/laptops-portable-pcs/laptops-and-netbooks/dell-xps-13-1328971/review.
Redmond, T. (2018). Office 365 for IT Pros . New York: Tony Redmond.
Swider, M. (2018, October 25). Google Pixel 3 XL review . TechRadar. Retried from https://www.techradar.com/uk/reviews/google-pixel-3-xl-review.
