The pandemic, a paradigm shift?
Faced with the containment measures induced by the covid-19 epidemic, the use of telework has become an absolute necessity for all the functions which can resort to it. However, many small businesses weren’t really ready, and still aren’t.
This exceptional situation has had an accelerating effect on the use of telework by a number of actors who were still reluctant, but this landscape in France is changing under the blows of the end-of-year strikes and now the epidemic. But what strategy should be adopted?
A chance for digital sovereignty?
For the past 15 days, I’ve seen ads on social networks boasting about the capabilities offered by Gafams, and I must say that it tickles my conscience ‘digital sovereignty’.
Indeed, why rush over for example Microsoft Teams®? Or Google Drive®? Especially since the former mismanaged the influx of new users and we were able to observe performance problems (Numerama). The exceptional situation in which we live forces us to make quick decisions, but do we take the right ones? Should we leave aside my favorite subject, our digital sovereignty?
As you can imagine, my answer is no! But what alternative solutions? Are there French or European solutions? Yes, they exist, but not having the same marketing and advertising power, difficult for them to gain visibility. My goal here is to present a French collaborative solution to you. It may not be unique, but you have to start with an example. I’m going to tell you about a solution that I discovered, it is the Wimi solution, which is offered by the company of the same name.
Wimi the French collaborative platform
It offers several solutions depending on your security needs and requirements. All of these offers are hosted in France and therefore escape American laws such as the Patriot Act and the Cloud Act. That alone is worth taking the time to think about it …
Once your offer selected, I must say that the handling is quite easy and intuitive. In addition to the web application, the app can be downloaded from the various stores, allowing access anytime, anywhere.
There are all the features, which allow efficient and fluid teamwork, possibility of making teleconferences, with screen sharing that works without a hitch on the tests that I have been able to perform on the restricted free version.
This application allows a real work in project mode with possibility of following the progress of tasks in ‘GANTT’ mode, which allows to visualize the critical path on your projects.
For companies that take digital sovereignty seriously, it seems to me that this is an interesting solution, it is clear that for advanced use at the scale of a company, it is not possible to be satisfied with the free solution (limited to 3 internal users and no external guest), so you have to switch to a paid solution. But this cost linked to the use of this solution seems reasonable to me, even if integrated solutions like that of Microsoft® with Teams seem to you a good deal because apparently free … Whatever the choices are made on your “office” solutions , take the time to assess:
- Your needs taking into account the flexibility and ease of handling by your users, they are not all of the millenium generation…
- Your expectations regarding the security of your data and its sustainability
- What legal regime not only for your data, but also for your technologies (Patriot Act & Cloud Act?), Especially in the context of international development …
- The proposed ease of being able to exit the offer. Indeed, it is very important to have an idea of the constraints and impacts of a solution change.
As a conclusion
I can only encourage you to quickly test this solution. It seems to me suitable for all sizes of business from VSE to large group. The current pandemic has made clear the need to preserve our industrial and technological sovereignty, especially in times of crisis. From my point of view, the same goes for technology companies. Each of us personally or as an economic actor to promote and perpetuate our business ecosystem.
I intend to continue my investigations and share with you other solutions, always with a compass, the appropriate processing of your data and their security, but above all with the objective of preserving our French or European digital sovereignty. Do not hesitate to also share your happy or unhappy experiences in the search for your solution.
