Today’s workplace has become fast-paced and laced with cutting-edge technology. Manual and time-consuming work is replaced by automation, and contactless intelligent solutions are taking over multiple divisions of an organization. 

The pandemic accelerated this transformation to such an extent that organizations started seeing these solutions as a necessity than just an emerging trend. As a result, organizations started shifting most of their operational support to cloud-based systems to ensure that remote working doesn’t affect the business. 

If you’re planning to shift your operational support to the cloud too, read on—we’ve compiled a list of five contact cloud-based systems that you, your employees, and your customers will appreciate. 

1. Parking booking system

Don’t you hate it when you waste a good 30 minutes of your morning looking for a parking spot? We all do. Even if one does somehow manage to arrive early to get a good spot, someone else will suffer and go through the same hassle. 

So, what’s wrong with this approach? 

Despite having ample parking space, every office needs a proper management system. Let's say you have 500 employees in your office and about 800 slots for parking. Unless there’s a system that analyzes the number of booked parking spaces, remaining parking spaces, and their locations, finding a parking space will always be a matter of luck. 

While managing this manually might be feasible for a small organization, as the number of employees grows, it’ll become more time-consuming. 

You need an automated car park booking system that saves you from the hassle of manually looking for a parking spot and booking it on the go. Instead of waiting around for a parking spot to free up in the lot, you get notified of the available space and an option to book instantly. This car park booking system guide will help you understand how the parking system works and the benefits it brings to your organization.

2. Smart attendance management system

When Covid forced organizations to adopt remote and hybrid work culture, the old ways of marking attendance using a punch-in system quickly became obsolete. Moreover, tracking employees’ time using spreadsheets and emails wasn’t very practical. Not to forget, there has always been a concern about maintaining a safe distance to avoid contracting the virus all this time, and contactless operation has become the need of the hour. 

Fortunately, smart attendance management systems came to the rescue allowing contactless tracking of employees’ attendance. Using face recognition technology to recognize faces and fingerprints streamlines the attendance management process more. 

If you already have a biometrics system installed, a smart attendance management system is easy to integrate into the existing system and enhance its functionality. While detecting human faces, it also captures the date, timestamp, and location to facilitate real-time tracking of employees.

All of this is stored in a database that helps you store large volumes of attendance data and generate comprehensive reports automatically.

• It helps you track total working hours

• It allows seamless monitoring of leaves

• It’s easy to integrate with the payroll management system and calculate total wages based on total working hours

• It’s easy to configure on mobile devices

• Managing employees has never been easier

3. Contactless ordering and payments

Now that most office infrastructures are contactless, why leave the payments and ordering department? After all, it is where your employees and customers are most susceptible to contracting an ailment if proper social distancing protocols aren’t followed.

Considering that credit card services such as Mastercard and Visa have increased their transaction limits for contactless card transactions. Moreover, Google Pay and Apple Pay have been promoting contactless payment since it began. In this case, you must facilitate a system that accepts payments through these contactless payment sources. 

Install a POS or an app-based payment system that allows transactions from a safe distance, even from faraway locations. 

What about contactless food ordering, then?

Like how restaurants have implemented QR-code menus that allow visitors to view and select their orders with a click, company cafeterias can also replicate this concept. Upload your menu as a PDF and generate a QR code using that. Once you have that, get the QR code printed and displayed on each table to help employees find and use it conveniently. 

4. Desktop as a service (DaaS) 

About 63% of the world’s population has implemented the hybrid work model in their organizations. While remote working is flexible and cost-saving in terms of the money hardware and systems would have cost you, it poses a serious security concern. First, there’s always the risk of employees accessing company data from an unsecured network, and then there’s a high chance their personal devices are not as secure as office systems. 

Luckily, Desktop as a Service (DaaS) helps you bring your company’s infrastructure right to your employees’ personal devices keeping all security measures in check. The platform is somewhat similar to Software as a Service (SaaS) in approach, allowing your employees to connect from anywhere in the world without relying on a physical desktop. Imagine the level of productivity and flexibility it brings in today’s corporate world.

Through the service, you lend a PC to the cloud server. This PC is physically located in data centers, i.e., your office, and only the authorized personnel can avail and connect to it using the internet.

Here are some benefits it offers:

Scalability

Users have access to managing the configuration of a DaaS system on the cloud—the PC's size, CPU, and RAM. Moreover, one can expand or reduce processing as per requirements. 

Easy computing

The best thing about DaaS infrastructure is—it’s easy to use and quickly takes you to your previous session without going through the hassle of setting it all up again. All you’ll need is IT support to help you procure, deploy and manage the cloud PCs in your organization, and you’re good to go. 

Security at its best

DaaS services such as Windows 365 use security solutions in the Azure environment and implement two-factor authentication (2FA) to ensure a secure login and data privacy. Moreover, the secured networks are not very easy to break into, and you instantly get updates had there been a break-in from an untrusted source. 

Increased productivity

DaaS is a simplistic and practical platform to work with. Now, employees don’t have to worry about not having access to critical applications or not being at their desks. They can quickly log in to the system from any device and resolve a critical issue on the go. Moreover, for contractual workers, you don’t have to worry about issuing new systems and personal devices—simply connect them with your DaaS cloud and get the work going. 

5. Collaboration tools for distributed teams

With remote and hybrid working, come the challenges of working and collaborating seamlessly and meeting deadlines. Honestly, there’s no one to blame. Most organizations have employees working from around the globe from different time zones, and to think about staying on the same page seems a crazy thought. 

That’s what remote collaboration tools are for. From team communications to delivering a file or updating a task’s progress, you name it—there’s a tool for everything. 

Here are some important collaboration tools you must look for to ensure seamless collaboration between your remote team.

• Instant messaging software: Look for a software that easily connects you to both internal teams and external stakeholders. A video conferencing feature is a plus.

• Project management tool: You need one that’s not too overwhelming and confusing to use but also offers a variety of data views to suit every project requirement.

• Screen recording tool: When you can skip a ‘quick’ zoom call and explain a concept with a video, we bet you’ll prefer the latter. 

• Time management tool: Help your employees track time and manage and dedicate their work hours, and you’ll be amazed by the results.

• Cloud storage: Keep everything organized and in place while your company data is secured and hidden from prying eyes. 

• Whiteboards: Explaining a new concept or project to your team, but presentations seem too boring? Jazz it up by explaining it all on a whiteboard. Give them flowcharts, graphs, and all sorts of data to get the most value out of a meeting. 

Cloud-based systems are here to stay

Even when the world has resumed its pre-Covid operations and everything is getting back to normal, contactless technology is still preferred. Why?

It makes processes efficient by reducing manual work, cutting down time, and reducing labor and human error costs. Now, businesses are more at ease in launching and storing their data on the cloud, as the service providers are going to great lengths to ensure data security and privacy. 

More importantly, cloud-based systems allow businesses to scale their operations and take them to the next level.