As remote work becomes the 'new normal' for many around the world, the security threats resulting from the rapidly changing work conditions are posing an unprecedented challenge for businesses. The immediate need to shift work conditions left organizations scrambling to institute remote working policies with many executives unprepared to roll out the right tools and procedures securely and at scale. However, for companies it's not just about being prepared for a global pandemic.

At Freshworks, our mission has been to help customer support teams deliver “moments of wow”, thereby enabling every business to create customers-for-life. It is the foundation for everything we do here at Freshworks. And we strive every day to deliver on that promise by continually improving our product and the customer experience.

Many of us are now working from home for the first time. In light of the global pandemic, companies have handed out laptops, closed down their offices and transitioned to being fully remote. It’s certainly not the ideal way to dip a toe into the remote workforce. However, for those of us that are lucky enough to have the opportunity, working from home means we can continue to support our customers and earn a living.

Gone are the days when manufacturing industries, construction and software companies were the only major consumers of project management tools. Every industry has slowly evolved to understand the importance of using a project management methodology to handle all their tasks systemically. ITS, a dental college in Northern India has started managing all their academic activities using Zoho Projects, our project management tool.

More than 2,000 developers from around the world participated in our open source bot hackfest, which we hosted on HackerEarth from January 10 through March 2. The goal of the event was to work with our community to create open source chatbots that integrate with Mattermost to accelerate DevOps and DevSecOps workflows, and we received many amazing submissions! We gave away $10,000 in prizes, including $6,000 cash to our top contributors.

Tons of companies have now been forced to start working remotely because of COVID-19. And for good reason, right? It allows employees to practice social isolation to keep themselves safe and avoid passing on the virus to anyone else. But increased personal safety is not the only benefit of having a virtual team. Virtual teams can help your company in tons of different ways!

“Right now, you as leaders have only one option: Lead your way out of this challenge.” That’s what Mike Caracalas, leadership coach, executive consultant, and author of Ten Strategies to Get Better Results with People advises. He’s right. But leading in the best of times is difficult, and while many of the best leadership qualities and practices must apply these days more than ever, leaders must quickly adapt to an ongoing, very complex way of getting work done.

It’s impossible for a business to place too much of an emphasis on its customers. If your customers are happy, your business will have a better chance of succeeding. To make sure your business thrives, it’s critical for you to guide your valuable customers through each stage of their journey with your company and help them get amazing results along the way. However, keeping your customers happy isn’t easy.

Engineering Advice on supporting your teams—technical or otherwise—when everyone is telecommuting

Our chief product officer explains what that means and why it matters now