Once the home of lavish offices complete with cold brew on tap and yoga classes in the afternoon, Silicon Valley has been quick to realize the power of remote work. Could a similar approach unfold closer to home? 

By Xische Editorial, May 22, 2020

Over the last two months, the technology world has warmly embraced remote work. Google and Spotify are allowing staff to work from home for the rest of the year. Twitter said employees don’t ever have to come back to the office (if they don’t want to). Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees such long-term benefits in working from home that within ten years as much as half of his 45,000 employees will work from home. Once the home of lavish offices complete with cold brew on tap and yoga classes in the afternoon, Silicon Valley has been quick to realize the power of remote work. Should a similar approach unfold closer to home? 

Since early March, Xische has been working remotely in the UAE and with our partners across the globe. We have also been sharing our tips and tricks for a smooth transition from the physical to the digital office: deploy extra empathy and make sure to create a space for some fun (virtual) office banter. Our approach to remote work is not new and wasn’t directly connected to the Covid-19 crisis. With Dubai as our home base, we’ve been roaming the globe in search of the best talent for years. 

As Wisam Amid, our managing director recently wrote in Gulf News, remote work is a necessary component of agile businesses that are ready to seize opportunities in today’s fast-moving economy. As business owners are forced to implement remote work due to COVID-19, we should see this as a valuable trial instead of a hindrance. Businesses need real-life scenarios to identify the chinks in the system.

Our focus on quality talent and love of technology allowed us to create a virtual office capable of getting projects out the door. This is exactly what Silicon Valley is seeing as a result of Covid-19. Executives at top companies interviewed by The Wall Street Journal last week noted that the crisis is allowing their companies to look for talent beyond the narrow confines of California. With a remote work approach in place, these companies are set for a profound shift in productivity and quality. 

Locating the best talent on any given subject is key to our overall business model and should drive other companies as well. If we need an expert on smart city water systems, for example, we have found the remote work model exceptionally efficient in opening up possibilities. Once the person is located, we use technology to connect with partners around the world and augment our staff on projects in Dubai.

What if this strategy was employed on a national level? Consider the UAE. We are certainly not immune from the shifts taking place in the global economy and that will mean a significant change in our workforce. With one of the best digital infrastructures anywhere in the world and a developed aviation sector that can quickly and easily connect Dubai with the world, we are ideally positioned to be a remote working hotspot. Local companies in search of the best talent can look anywhere they wish to fulfill these needs. 

There are plenty of models in place that could help guide this transition. The small Baltic nation of Estonia has led the way with an e-residency program that allows companies to be set up virtually from anywhere. The country launched the world’s first e-Residency program in 2014 with the goal of 10 million e-residents by 2025. The program is revolutionary in its simplicity. Building on Estonia’s established digital economy, e-Residency allows entrepreneurs from around the world to set up a digital business in the country without the need to be physically present.

With a government-issued digital identity and status, digital entrepreneurs can run a business from anywhere in the world. From freelancers to established entrepreneurs and digital nomads, the e-Residency allows people to operate an online European Union-registered company from anywhere. According to Ott Vatter, the managing director of the e-Residency program, its primary benefit is that e-residents have the ability to establish and manage a paperless EU company designed for global business. Estonia has accelerated its digital-first approach to governance during the Covid-19 pandemic with special digital immunity passports for the workplace that will carry information about who has been tested for the virus and other health details.

Dubai is following a similar path with its own digital business registration program. With the Covid-19 pandemic as a catalyst, we assume that additional programs will be unveiled to encourage this global transformation. Thanks to its network connections around the world, Dubai is an ideal home base to operate a digital-first business. With the likes of  Silicon Valley pivoting, now is the time to capitalize on this shift in the economy. Thinking outside of the box in these subtle ways is going to be key to finding the real opportunities that exist in the Covid-19 marketplace.