The 2012 Olympics are approaching fast — many of the tickets have been sold, the torch relay is under way and people are building up to the big event.

But many UK organisations have not yet reviewed their IT systems and capacity to ensure they can cope with the huge peaks in demand which are expected during this period.

If you are a business owner or IT manager, you cannot afford to ignore this. Even though you may be many miles from London, the impact upon business computer networks is expected to reach far and wide — especially when Team GB is going for gold in one of the prestige events.

In many businesses and under normal circumstances, staff may occasionally access YouTube and other such sites but this typically has a limited impact upon network performance.

The problem with the Olympics is that millions of people will want to watch simultaneously as Usain Bolt tries to break another world record or Jessica Ennis goes for gold in the Heptathlon.

To put this in context, millions of people streamed the 2011 Royal Wedding online and sorely tested some networks but the business impact was limited as this was a UK Bank Holiday.

In contrast, the Olympics will extend for more than two weeks in the height of summer.

Rather than worrying about the potential impact of the Games on your business, consider a few simple steps to ensure your business is fit for London 2012.

Review your IT capacity If a large number of your IT users choose to simultaneously view YouTube or the BBC online, this is going to rapidly eat away at your available bandwidth.

For day-to-day operations, your current network capacity may be more than adequate but a substantial reduction in performance or bandwidth could seriously affect your ability to process orders or to offer great customer support.

Check your current capacity now and assess its capability to support some major peaks in demand. There will be increased demand across the UK so your network provider may not be able to simply add to your capacity so you may need to work within your constraints or consider other alternatives.

To put this in context, BT Global Services conducted a major business survey into the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

This survey found 23 per cent of organisations experienced issues with network capacity during the Games and 30 per cent thought they could have further improved their working facilities.

Create clear guidelines Clearly, increased absenteeism could be an issue in this period and the BT study found that, although 58 per cent of organisations took preventative action, 28 per cent of respondents reported higher than average levels of absenteeism.

Official policies and written guidelines may seem a little draconian but everybody needs to understand what is expected.

By publishing some simple guidelines, everybody will know what they can and cannot do. This will also pre-empt any problems and will allow everybody to plan their day to see the action AND to get their work done.

Celebrate the event — set up a viewing room If you have a large in-house TV or monitor, a good idea may be to set a room aside as an ‘official’ Olympic viewing area.

You can allow people to pop-in during coffee or lunch breaks to see the action — and if there’s a big event with strong British interest, why not all watch together?

With a bit of imagination, you could turn this into a great team building and bonding exercise whilst minimising the impact on your network. Your people will appreciate the gesture and will be less tempted to sneak off for a ‘private’ viewing.

Encourage remote and mobile working In parts of the South East, transport systems will be pushed to the limit and the same is true of network capacity. Adopting flexible working hours could be a short-term fix with staff working from home or a remote location to spread the load and risk for the business.

Growing numbers of staff now expect to be able to connect to workplace systems “anytime, anywhere”. By allowing staff to work remotely during the Olympics, this will spread the burden away from overloaded networks.

There are numerous options for enabling remote and secure connections to your network or you could look at temporarily moving your key systems and data to a “cloud based” solution to minimise access problems.

Be prepared Above all – ‘be prepared’. The Olympics begin in July, so act now to guarantee the business continues to operate smoothly despite the added pressures the Olympics may provide.

Let’s all enjoy the Games by planning ahead. It should be great for Britain and great for business — as long as you are ready.

Contact: 01865 593010 Web: www.complete-it.co.uk