The firm says that its business has seen a 50% increase in remote log ins to corporate IT systems, when travel disruption was at its worst and businesses and schools were forced to close across Britain.

According to the Federation of Small Businesses, up to three million people missed work because of the snow on January 5, costing businesses £600 million. And the Centre for Economics and Business Research predicts that more than 2,000 companies could go bankrupt as a result of the cold snap.

Dave Abraham, Signify's CEO, said that, with businesses already struggling through a recession, the ability to keep going through all eventualities is essential.

"But at the same time security cannot be compromised; so by providing employees with secure remote access they are able to work securely and effectively from home to minimise the loss of productivity," he said.

"And with some businesses now suggesting they may not pay employees who have been trapped at home in the snow, remote access removes the pressure to make potentially dangerous journeys into work," he added.

According to Abraham, the beauty of using a reliable hosted service is that there is no up-front investment and it is very quick and affordable to deploy as well as being flexible and easy to manage for any size organisation.

"In addition to an increase in use of our 2FA services by existing customers, we are also getting more enquiries from businesses and public sector bodies planning ahead for further disruption," he explained.

The Signify CEO went on to say that, whilst this may seem like a one off occurrence, snow is just one way to bring unprepared businesses to a grinding halt.

"Every three to six months there are national or regional disasters that can prevent people from going to work; from the annual bout of the Noro virus to regular floods, train and tube strikes, terrorist threats and bomb scares," he said.