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support for WFH initiatives post-COV- ID. A full 90 percent of small business owner surveyed by Balboa Capital plan to allow remote work when the COVID-19 pandemic subsides or is no longer a concern. A Conference Board survey also found that 47 percent of human capital executives expect 20 percent or more of workforces to remain remote (at least three days a week) for at least 12 months post pandemic. That compares to the less than one in 10 of organizations indicating that the share of U.S. em- ployees working primarily from home before the pandemic was higher than 20 percent. Moreover, the Confer- ence Board study found that “including more remote work” was seen as orga- nizations’ number one most significant change in the recovery phase. Not that WFH is entirely new to American companies. About half of small businesses polled by Balboa Capital had remote workers in place before the COVID-19 pandemic. And in a 2019 survey by Computer Econom- ics, “a measly 8 percent of IT organiza- tions did not allow personnel to work from home, regardless of how often it occurred or the reasons for it,” said the IT research firm. Back in 2008, “a whopping 64 percent of IT organiza- tions did not allow their personnel to work from home, at any level,” said CE. Human resource executives surely will not have any trouble finding vol- unteers to remain as WFH. Several surveys, including a July 2020 poll by GlobalWebIndex, suggest that as much as half of U.S. employees would prefer or are at least very interested in WFH being part of their new normal. So, it’s good news that channel pro- viders have been quick to address the WFH trend. Following are a few new introductions in key WFH categories such as connectivity, security and ser- vice quality. Cox BusinessWFH Connectivity Designed to provide an overall more robust WFH service, Cox Busi- ness has launched a separate con- nection for home use that includes broadband, Wi-Fi and related se- curity services. As home networks are strained by increased bandwidth needs such as from video streaming services and remote learning, “Cox Business Work-at-Home solutions separate work and home connectivity, giving employees enterprise-grade connectivity and Wi-Fi to promote more productive employees,” said Steve Rowley, executive vice presi- dent, Cox Business. The Cox Business Work-at-Home solutions provide enterprise-grade connectivity along with security fea- tures such as McAfee endpoint se- curity and MalBlock. It also provides access to additional commercial features such as static IP addresses, Microsoft 365 and Cox Complete Care for remote troubleshooting. Cox Busi- ness installs the data connectivity for the WFH solution while customers can self-install the voice service. Cox Business also includes business- grade service level agreements and tech support. For broadband speeds, Cox Busi- ness Internet 50 is 50 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up while the Cox Business 1G tier is 1 Gbps down and 35 Mbps up. For some of the higher speeds, a DOCSIS 3.1 gateway is required. Cox Business rents the customer premises equipment to the WHF users while providing centralized billing directly to the business. Pricing for the WHF solutions is flexible, but the base Work-at-Home bundle starts at $145 per month. Sennheiser Teams with Zoom Sennheiser has teamed up with Zoom Video Communications, combin- ing the benefits of Zoom’s cloud-based enterprise video communications and Sennheiser’s premium HD audio qual- ity. Sennheiser’s headsets and speak- erphones now have full interoperability with Zoom Meetings for Windows. The interoperability provides effort- less call control integration, which increases flexibility in meetings as well as the productivity and the ability to multitask, said the companies. Star2Star Service Insight Even before the pandemic, custom- er service-based agents and employee were leading the shift to remote work. That is only expected to intensify as WFH becomes ingrained into corporate Percentage of US full-time employees working primarily from home (at least 3 days a week) before COVID-19 and expectation 12 months postpandemic Source: The Conference Board, April 2020 Source: CompTIA How has COVID-19 impacted your UC sales during the past 3 months, based on what you sell? Source: Baird, June 2020 Less than 10% % Remote workers % of organizations Before COVID-19 Period Expectation one year after COVID-19 10% to less than 20% 20% to less than 40% 40% or more 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Zoom Phone Dialpad GoTo Connect/ Jive Vonage Microsoft Fuze Ring Central Other Hybrid/ on- premises Greatly Decelerated Slightly Decelerated Neutral Slightly Accelerated Greatly Accelerated 76% 31% 15% 23% 6% 28% 3% 19% 6% 8% 0% 42% 13% 13% 8% 8% 4% 29% 42% 38% 29% 17% 13% 14% 14% 14% 14% 43% 14% 32% 32% 16% 13% 14% 5% 8% 29% 38% 13% 13% 19% 44% 50% 6% 12% 24% 53% BUYERS SIDE Sennheiser MB 360 UC 17 July - August, 2020 | CHANNEL VISION