Saifullah Khan participates in the IR Global Guide – Crisis Management: Surviving and thriving in a post-pandemic world
Foreward by Andrew Chilvers
Businesses across the world are undergoing the biggest remote working experiment since Europeans first sailed from their home ports to set up trading posts in Asia 500 years ago.
This time around, however, companies are moving colleagues out of their plush city centre locations to set up offices at home. What was unthinkable only a few months ago is now the new modus operandi for professional services firms and their clients. Crisis management and business continuity have indeed come of age thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
All this may be difficult for businesses that prefer traditional ways of operating, but most are changing their habits of a lifetime out of necessity. The old adage of preparing for the worst while expecting the best has never been more apt.
Will the professional service business model change as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic?
Professional service providers, following the standard operating procedure (SOP) prescribed by the government of Pakistan, are allowed to operate from their offices, but social distancing requirements also compel us to work from remote locations.
Professional service providers act as a bridge between clients and the regulatory bodies who enforce the law relating to the area of their practice. As a service provider we need to be based in a central location that is easily accessible for clients. Similarly, we are also located close to all the relevant regulatory bodies, so that we can visit them to carry out our professional obligations. Consequently, there is a little opportunity to move away from prime locations to avoid the premium rents.
Instead of making more investment on remote working practices, it will be more feasible for us to continue with the existing prime location office as a headquarters, controlling the work of the professionals working from their homes. Some lead colleagues will perform as coordinators from the HQ. This arrangement will also facilitate in-house meetings of professionals, meetings with clients and liaison with relevant regulatory bodies.
Operating from our prime location during COVID-19 will do no harm to our reputation as a top tier professional service provider. Indeed, we believe it will increase our reputation by maintaining our physical presence during the pandemic, while most of the other law firms practice remote working.
However, if COVID-19 continues and relocation become a necessity, I would personally vacate the office and shift the HQ to my residence. This is located in a prime city area and is ideal for clients.
Remote working is being seen as the new normal, how will this affect the culture of professional services firms?
With the spread of COVID-19, professional services firms are redesigning their work culture, operating smart offices in the heart of prime business areas with a network of remote locations. The smart office will house marketing executives and networking professionals, while other professionals will be working from their remote locations.
This new type of working could be an opportunity as it would be cost effective in the following ways:
• it will save rents, utility bills, transport/fuel, entertainment expenses;
• it will reduce the wage bill as professionals working from remote locations (mostly homes) will be more willing to work for lower salaries than is currently the case;
• the new normal will provide an opportunity to hire high quality professionals from remote locations who otherwise would not be willing to move to offices at prime locations; and
• it will open a new window for hiring highly educated talented women who were reluctant to travel a long way to prime location offices.
This new work design may face a threat of overburdening the work of key professionals in allocating, monitoring, guiding and finalising the work of their junior members of staff. Issues such as team discussions, intermediary liaisons, timely guidance and teaming up on the bigger assignments may be a problem. It may also create issues when adhering to tight timelines.
Nevertheless, these new modes of working will have little impact on generating and delivering work as our clients will soon be used to the new post COVID-19 ways of working.
We believe in quality work, innovation and efficient delivery. It’s a way we’ve always won the trust of our clients. This will continue regardless of new ways of working – indeed, we want our clients to see how efficient we are and how good our service delivery is in this new normal post COVID-19 world.
With so many people now working from home using unsecure internet networks, should there be updated rules for data protection compliance? If so, should they be more relaxed given the crisis wrought by the pandemic?
Data protection authorities typically monitor and enforce protection about processing of personal data. The professional services providers, generally, under an agreement/contract to render the services, collects the data (over and above the personal data). Nevertheless, the security of clients’ data in an automated environment is the responsibility of the service providers under the contractual obligations by and between the clients and also under the relevant data protection legislation.
As the world is passing through this post COVID-19 phase, the government must step in to facilitate the transition in a way that data secrecy/privacy may not be compromised. The government on the one hand may relax the penalties under the relevant data protection laws and on the other manage to provide easy and accessible infrastructure and/or technological support in order for the professional services providers to meet their obligations under the data protection laws and also under the contractual obligations.
This is also subject to cultural responsiveness among the members of society. The use of pirated software is common and due to cost constraints users normally rely on unsecured networks. The government may facilitate and encourage the use of copyrighted and secure networks and offer tax breaks for making investment and/ or acquisition of patented software and for use of secure networks.
Technology companies should help by developing cost-friendly data protection solutions, particularly for small and medium-size businesses. For monitoring and taking appropriate actions, during the pandemic, the authorities are heavily processing personal data. This collection and processing of data is beyond normal and exceptional but is required. There is a need to build consensus to make appropriate amendments in the data protection laws to balance healthcare monitoring by the government and the legislative safeguards with respect to privacy and personal data protection.