The New Normal: COVID-19, Innovation, & Our Technology Partner – CIO Solutions: PART 1

The New Normal: COVID-19, Innovation, & Our Technology Partner - CIO Solutions: PART 1

We are now 6 months into the global pandemic that we’ve come to know as the Novel Coronavirus. It has become clear that this problem will be more prolonged than originally anticipated. Construction Dive released the findings of a recent survey, “A combined 75% of readers who responded to our [survey] now expect the impacts of COVID-19 to last another year or more, with 19% anticipating disruptions for at least another 18 months,” beckoning more sustainable solutions to the complications that the Construction industry is facing. As the rates of confirmed cases continue to rise nationwide, with the second wave landing much earlier than the Fall, companies are faced with the challenge of how to navigate forward successfully.

 
Innovation has also become a major biproduct of the pandemic, especially in the Construction industry. Top priorities have shifted to focus on innovations, remote work experience, digital security, productivity apps, and data protection. It’s clear that IT-related solutions are in greater demand during the COVID-19 crisis. Our partnership with CIO Solutions helped us embrace technology-based resources and navigate the shift to a work-from-home environment. CIO Solutions define themselves as a technology consulting and network management service that places an emphasis on premium all-inclusive network management and support; Private Cloud Computing; virtualization solutions; and enterprise storage design.
 
Their latest project for us was migrating our company to a local server, setting up VPN’s for remote access, and developing our secure file share system. We started this project in the middle of moving to a new office and completed it as a majority of our office staff moved to a work-from-home schedule in response to the pandemic. CIO Solutions provided our employees with direct access to their support teams, removing our internal point of contact as the middleman, thus increasing our problem resolution and productivity.

The Construction industry has increasing access to all similar services like CIO Solutions, in addition to innovative technologies and apps to schedule, manage, report, and streamline construction workflows while not requiring to be directly onsite of a construction project. Building Information Modeling improves traditional blueprints with digital representations of buildings in 3D form. BIM uses historical data and predictions to improve projects and make the planning more efficient. Similarly, augmented realities and virtual realities are being utilized for remote training and development through simulated experiences.

 
Many companies abruptly transitioned to remote based workflows and began using tele-communication tools for meetings. CIO Solutions provided educational resources with recommendations on the best tools and sustainable processes. For the organizations, like Legacy Construction, who made the shift to remote work found that productivity and efficiency increased. As a result, many began to consider if an “in-person workforce” is even essential for production.
 
We can anticipate increased spending on specialized software and cloud infrastructure. Digital and remote sales will become more common, as channels are made more available, and digital environments become more aggressively adopted. Reliable technology tools and reliable partners like CIO Solutions are the solution to maintaining and improving workflows in the midst of the global pandemic.

Read Part Two Below: