The remote working revolution has hit some industries harder than others. After all, some businesses simply lend themselves to remote working better than others, and the benefits of working remotely will be much larger for some industries than for others. Whereas some service industry jobs may never lend themselves to telecommuting, other jobs in areas like consulting and creative services are already heavily dependent on remote access work systems, and will only become more dependent on them as the years go by.
In fact, there are already companies that utilize remote access systems to such a degree that their employees and managers have never actually met face to face; they simply conduct their business by phone, email, and Skype. And what industries are these companies in? Read on to learn which five industries have benefited most from the spread of remote access work systems.
1. Creative Services
No industry is more indebted to the power of remote access work systems than the creative services industry, which has become hugely reliant on telecommuting and other forms of remote access working. Many creative products—graphical designs, written products, photographs, and so forth—can be sent and reviewed electronically, and never have to exist in physical, printed form. That means many creative services firms can do all their work on computers, and there is no pressing need for the employees to meet in an office.
But there's more to this story than that. Creative service firms are talent-driven businesses, and in the past, many struggled to find employees with the talents they need. Particularly in small towns, creative service firms were very limited in their recruiting, and often had to make do without the talent they needed. The spread of the internet and telecommuting, however, has made this a non-issue. Any creative service firm can go online and find someone with the skillset it needs, and that person can work entirely from a remote location. Telecommuting has revolutionized creative services, and we all benefit from the changes every day.
2. Consulting
In the past, consulting almost always required consultants to travel to their clients, no matter what sort of consulting they did. It simply wasn't possible for consultants to get access to the volume of information they needed while working anywhere else. Well, no more. Consultants working on all manner of problems can get the information they need delivered electronically, which saves them the time and expense needed to travel to their clients. As a result, consultants can work faster and be more productive, and their clients no longer have to foot the cost of their travels.
3. Legal Services
Some may be surprised to learn that lawyers are on the list of those who have benefited most from telecommuting. After all, lawyers are usually only licensed to practice in one state, which greatly limits the area from which they can recruit new clients. While that's certainly true, lawyers have been at the forefront of using telecommuting to court clients from further and further afield. Not only that, but lawyers at big firms with branches throughout the country are able to collaborate effortlessly while telecommuting, which makes large legal projects not only faster, but also less expensive because of the savings on travel and hotels. Telecommuting has been a major boon for the legal services industry, and it is one industry that is likely to become even more dependent on remote access systems in years to come.
4. Financial Services
Now that much of a company's bookkeeping is done online or in another electronic form, there are no reasons a company's accountants or bookkeepers need to be in the same location as the company itself. Documents these professionals need can be sent around the company (or around the world) in an instant, and teams of accountants or bookkeepers can work on information in the same databases, even if none of them are living or working the same place. This has allowed financial service professionals to recruit new clients from all over the country, and grow their businesses accordingly.
5. Managed Services Providers
Because after all, Managed Service Providers (MSPs) usually have to develop and maintain secure remote access for their customers anyway, extending the privilege of teleworking to internal staff is the next logical step. Support reps that would normally be in the office assisting clients, and do so just as well from a VPN connection from their home office. This also means your emergency “on-call” staff can significantly lower their response time by opening their laptop instead of driving into the office. Also remember that the rest of the industries listed above may be contracted by an MSP at some point or another. Having the provisions internally to allow these contractors to contribute remotely will make business run far more smoothly.
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