Unexpected events, like the Covid-19 pandemic, have led to crucial changes. Enterprises will have to face a transformation: they shall be prepared to respond to the changing environment, and be ready to re-start and eventually handle the new reality. The third step in particular, the re-start one, focuses on the workforce, the personnel and the assets protection, along with the working environment rearrangement. The environment has to be reinvented, it will no longer be like the one we knew before the pandemic: businesses have to find their way to reshape spaces, make them more resilient, and adapt the operations models to the “new normal”.

CHANGE EQUATES EVOLUTION. HERE SOME KEY POINTS ON FEATURES AND TECHNOLOGIES NEEDED TO DEAL WITH THE CURRENT EVOLUTION OF THE MARKET

Change equates to evolution, we, at Sofia Locks, are aware of this, as we have been intensively researching to be ready to face and manage all upcoming challenges. Here some key points we have collected on the features and technologies needed to deal with the current evolution of the market. In the current landscape, in which psychological, financial and infrastructural uncertainties reign, technology plays a fundamental role. It supports effort to track, identify and fight the virus, it promotes connections between work and education, and it may turn up for rescuing lives. Through such tools people can find confidence, look forward and evaluate the current situation to plan future actions aimed at leading business out of the crisis safely and solidly. Technological innovations are a stream of constant change and play a key role, as they help organizations to reshape working spaces and to rearrange working forces. Cloud-native solutions are crucial, through them everything can wirelessly communicate and be free of time and space constraints. These systems are flexible and secure, they live at the core of proptech solutions and they can keep the whole market alive, also because their flexibility makes them easy to instal and adapt. So, for instance, an important feature to consider is remote access, because it allows avoiding gatherings, managing spaces and resources, and helping respecting the social distancing. On the management side, from the orchestration point of view, cloud-native solutions have reached a turning point: everything can happen simultaneously and under the supervision of a central intelligence supported by powerful automation. These systems support integration with several different smart devices resulting in more efficient and reactive environments. Smart tools are crucial when talking about space management, because they provide information about the status of occupants and spaces. The monitoring and control features provide information through analytics in real-time, i.e. showing how crowded rooms are. In this way the managers can have a clear vision of the situation and the needed information to deal with unexpected events. Communication is another key aspect, right now protocols and policy shall be easily shared through employees in order to increase awareness. Managers and employees should be coordinated and cooperate, people should be able to report emergencies, request sanitization of spaces when needed , or demand for new PPE , while who runs the business should share specific information and alerts when needed.

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IS FORCING ORGANIZATIONS TO RESHAPE THEIR SPACES AND MODIFY THEIR OPERATIONS, BUT IT HAS ALSO ACCELERATED THE TECHNOLOGICAL ADOPTION

Concluding, the Covid-19 pandemic is forcing organizations to reshape their spaces and modify their operations, but it has also accelerated the technological adoption. We, at Sofia Locks, have been working hard in the last months to understand how to simplify the organization of spaces and make them safer for everyone. We have designed these features to help businesses face this challenge with the right tools and suitable systems, in order to improve resilience, flexibility, efficiency, and especially safety.