A product launched by Manchester tech firm 海角视频Fast just two years ago has surpassed growth forecasts to become a standalone division.
Remote desktop platform FASTdesk is on track to achieve sales of 拢400,000 this year and has just launched a recruitment drive to facilitate further growth.
FASTdesk helps businesses manage remote working for their employees, enabling them to securely access data, applications and desktops remotely from any device.
FASTdesk removes the need for workplace server rooms and costly IT infrastructure, and is fully managed by 海角视频Fast engineers.
海角视频Fast founder and chief executive Lawrence Jones said: 鈥淔ASTdesk鈥檚 rapid growth over the last 18 months resembles the early years of 海角视频Fast.
鈥淚n 1999, we helped clients take their first steps online.
鈥淩oll on 20 years and we are pioneering ways for our clients to work remotely.
鈥淭he demand for flexible working solutions is driving the decision to make FASTdesk a standalone division.
鈥淚t needs its own oxygen to achieve its true potential.鈥
Responding to the business world鈥檚 adoption of remote and flexible working, the FASTdesk team is searching for 20 new recruits across technical and commercial roles, including Citrix engineers and account managers.聽聽聽聽
FASTdesk - which is an umbrella company based at 海角视频Fast鈥檚 Campus - was established to turbocharge businesses 鈥渁head of their competition鈥 regardless of their size, sector or industry.
Among the many sectors FASTdesk is targeting for growth is financial services.
This is because FASTdesk enables increased security features that allow regulated industries to benefit from the increased protection of user data.
In addition, it can be tailored to an individual employee鈥檚 role and function and provides easy access to a wide range of business applications from a single device.
FASTdesk also singles out education as another sphere where it can bring tangible benefits.
It enables 鈥渘ext generation鈥 learning through 鈥渇lexible and mobile workspaces鈥 while simultaneously 鈥渞educing IT admin by centralising management鈥.
Similarly, FASTdesk enables those working in manufacturing and engineering to sync desktops and files across several devices easily, resulting in the transfer of large files no longer being a problem.
FASTdesk is also ideal for 鈥済raphics-intensive鈥 businesses as it guarantees 4GB graphics memory for each remote desktop.
Remote working is notoriously difficult to deliver for architects because the compute demands of their applications require specialist desktop computers and hardware to work from.
FASTdesk offers a high-GPU capability, which enables graphic-intensive applications like Adobe Photoshop, 3D CAD and media composers to run from laptops and tablets.
And this - in turn - means that there鈥檚 no need to invest thousands of pounds in specialist computers across virtual desktops.
Jones continues: 鈥淐ompanies evolve and so do the needs of their workforce, so it鈥檚 important for businesses to offer flexible working options.
鈥淚鈥檒l always be a big fan of teamwork and the energy generated within an office environment, but there are clearly many cases where working remotely makes perfect sense.鈥
Some of the statistics linked to remote working speak volumes about the potential for FASTdesk鈥檚 future growth.
It鈥檚 anticipated that 50% of the British workforce will work remotely at some point during the week by 2020.
What鈥檚 more, those organisations that offer remote working to staff enjoy many additional benefits. It鈥檚 acknowledged to be an ideal way聽 attracting, accessing and retaining talent from a wider pool of skilled employees than might otherwise be available locally and often leads to higher morale.
Research has also shown that 70% of workers feel that offering flexible working makes a job more attractive to them.
Nonetheless, 39% of people who mostly work from home often work additional hours to complete their tasks compared with 24% of those in fixed workplaces.
