So. Millions of people in one of the busiest and most forward thinking cities struggle into work on a day when the London Underground goes on strike. Ok, so there were some trains, but there have never been so many people wandering the streets with maps.

This in a country where in 2007 over 50% of UK adults had access to broadband!

This in a country where the emphasis is on collaboration, team working and more to the point, mobile working… that is working from anywhere.

So why don’t enterprise sized businesses embrace the technology which they have already invested in? They have Citrix, laptops, VPNs… and yet on a day when it would be more sensible to work from home, employees are told to struggle into the office – often doubling the amount of time spent in transportation. Working smarter never seemed so far away.

However, for small businesses there is an understanding as to why. The barrier to entry is perceived to be high. Access to servers via VPN requires investment in secure connectivity and typically a more than competent IT guy.

Online collaboration tools should be available for all, and what many smaller businesses aren’t aware is, they are. Document management, CRM and collaborative workspaces can now be commonplace for any business.

So, if you are faced with a day like today, don’t fret, treat it as normal and work without the boundaries of your office.

And to those enterprises forcing people into cities where the advice is to stay at home unless you have to travel… why did you invest in remote working technology? Working from home is not a privilege, it’s an opportunity to prove your investment was worth it.