When Traveling for Work, You Don't Need to Bring Every Piece of Technology

Have you ever packed too many personal belongings for a short trip? Have you ever packed too much technology? Do you have multiple devices? The truth is that no matter the reason you are traveling, you don’t need to pack like royalty to stay productive while you are on the road. Let's discuss how scaling down your technology while you travel is a solid practice.

Devices
In our modern era, the employee is usually asked to be productive when they travel. Traditionally that means lugging around costly hardware and trying to find access points to use along the way. Airports, train terminals, and bus terminals have a lot in common: they are filled with people on the go, and people who are looking to take advantage of unsuspecting travelers who take their eyes of their bags for even just a moment. Having too much to carry around can result in your computer, and thus your work data, being stolen. 

To avoid this fate, business professionals traveling for work need to consider scaling down on their technology to maximize space. Tablets and smaller laptops can provide benefit as they can easily fit in any-sized bag. The idea is to get the most powerful, yet smallest machines on board with you so that you can still accomplish work but not risk losing the bag or having it get stolen. Any machine that comfortably fits into a carry-on should be perfect for the average traveler. Today’s Netbooks, smaller Chromebooks, and the Macbook Air offer the kind of portability and powerful computing features needed to reduce the risk of having your technology pilfered.

Also, today’s smartphones are extraordinarily useful; not only are they good for communication and recreation, but they can also be used for productivity with very little modification. Today there are Bluetooth keyboards that permit users to connect to their phones and give them the opportunity to get more done on a small device. Remember, the average smartphone released in 2018 has as much computing power as many new laptops, so finding a way to use the devices for productivity works to your advantage.

For the latest Samsung smartphones, the Korean tech giant created Samsung Dex. Samsung Dex is a dock that provides a PC-like performance when hooked up to a monitor, using Bluetooth to connect the keyboard and mouse. In theory, it’s a good plan. Microsoft tried something similar to try and save their smartphone division, but it wasn’t enough. These devices are simply too powerful to be utilized to take selfies and pictures of food exclusively.

Connectivity
When your staff travels for work, making sure they have the most useful technology is vital. With Wi-Fi hotspots replacing the Internet cafes, connectivity isn’t a problem, at first. You will be able to get onto the web nearly anywhere you go, but the networks you use are probably not as secure as the one in your office. This presents significant problems with sending and receiving data. To mitigate the risk of data theft while on the road, organizations should consider a virtual private network (VPN) as a way to avoid data loss. A VPN provides a secure encrypted tunnel in which to send and receive data, keeping your data safe, and your organization out of harm's way.

Some companies will still want their staff members who are out of the office to sit in meetings. There are several conferencing solutions available that will permit your staff to remote into a meeting, making sure they don't miss anything important. There are also plenty of cloud-based file sharing solutions built directly for the remote worker. Thus, while it’s a traveler’s responsibility to ensure the hardware you send them with is secure, it is your responsibility to ensure that you have the technology in place to keep your data secure.

Traveling for business doesn’t have to be difficult and irritating. For more information about business solutions that will solve all the problems posed by remote workers, call Macro Systems today at 703-359-9211.