HOW TO THRIVE IN TODAY’S DIGITAL ERA

LORENZO LUMASSI, VICE PRESIDENT, SERVICES SALES, MERAT, WESTERN AND CNE REGIONS, DELL TECHNOLOGIES, SAYS, ENTERPRISES ARE INCREASINGLY RELYING ON IT SERVICES TO BRING AGILITY TO ALL PARTS OF THE ORGANISATION.

If we look back to just a few years ago, much of the digitalisation conversation was about discovery; learning what transformation is and why it’s important. For many businesses it was about overcoming the hesitancy of embarking on a digital transformation journey. Nowadays, the conversation has shifted and is less about the need to transform. Businesses and customers have kick-started their technology modernisation plans and have been learning and navigating through them real time.

If there’s anything that businesses recognised in the past year, it was the importance of technology in ensuring stability and long-term operational success. Having already started their journey, the time has come from businesses “needing to transform” to

“needing to accelerate.” The ability to remain competitive and ensure their organisation is agile enough to respond to changes is especially concerning for board members and CEOs. For IT, the directive has changed from “do more with less” to “do more with less…faster” as time expectations of the business are compressing exponentially.

As organisations look to integrate and build strong technology-based foundations, we’re seeing investments being made with a view to drive business agility, manage a connected and remote workforce efficiently, derive valuable insights from data and offer enhanced customer experiences. But transformation initiatives have been often stalled because IT teams are consumed with the demands and intricacies of ongoing operations.

What IT requires is greater flexibility to meet variable demands from the business, and the expertise to successfully manage transformational initiatives and keep pace with advancing technologies. Without well run IT operations, the likelihood of a transformation initiative failing to meet expectations increases. IT leaders need to focus their talent on transformation, but performance, reliability and security of operational systems cannot be compromised in the process. To better respond to the needs of business, organisations are turning to IT services to bring agility to all parts of their organisation.

Leveraging services helps keep an organisation’s technology environment operating at peak performance in the face of fast paced change, increased consumer demands and what can feel like overwhelming IT complexity. With IT-as-a-Service (ITaas), organisations are realising the benefits from having the hardware, software, and support according to their needs, in a subscription-based or consumption model. As cloud based-based capabilities are broadening, numerous solutions are available to everyday burdens. Almost any IT function can be supported by IT services experts, to help accelerate time-to-value on new technology investments and maximise productivity for IT and end users.

These delivery models are also an opportunity to reposition IT as a function that can drive business value. First and foremost, they free up IT departments from the day-to-day operations, allowing for more resources to focus on the core business and value-added projects, becoming a catalyst for innovation. Aside from increasing efficiency and being cost-effective, they can also facilitate the flexibility to scale as needed, whether through infrastructure, applications or skill sets if the leverage residency, managed or education related services.

But, IT services don’t only touch infrastructure and software. Transformation is moving beyond the foundation of a modern infrastructure as it involves people, process and workflow changes. Businesses are turning to consulting services to access expertise, help reassess their environments, and build transformation plans that achieve measurable outcomes aligned to corporate vision and strategy. These services also involve upskilling teams by identifying knowledge and skills gaps and defining a strategy to keep them up to date and leverage their full potential. The days of having a single role such as storage or server admin are fading fast. Coming to the forefront are new roles spanning multiple technologies like networking, server, storage, cloud and virtualisation, with a security-first mindset.

It’s clear that innovation leaders need IT services to drive transformative outcomes. The organisations that prioritise digital transformation and recognise it as fuel to the success of their business are turning to services to eliminate barriers, reduce costs, drive innovation and accelerate their transformation journey.

A SMART WORKING FUTURE

RICHARD VAN WAGENINGEN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT IMEAR, ORANGE BUSINESS SERVICES, SAYS HEALTH AND SAFETY WILL BE A CORPORATE PRIORITY IN 2021

The pandemic has given us all a heightened awareness of the safety of our environment and the importance of our personal space. Promoting employee and customer confidence in the workplace will be paramount this year as we ease back into the new different, and technology will have a big role to play.

The workplace faces further changes in 2021. While remote working will continue, the office has not been entirely abandoned. In fact, it is likely that offices will start to open as vaccination programs roll out. Many employees, however, will be worried about returning to shared spaces they haven’t worked in for months. Every enterprise will be responsible for balancing employee safety, both mental and physical, with the possibility of variant virus outbreaks and business demands. This is not an easy call.

Staying safe

Analyst firm Forrester has developed pandemic management protocols on how to bring employees back into the office. This includes employees coming back in stages, scheduling work shifts, creating a hybrid working policy and retaining social distancing.

The office will look very different from twelve months ago. IT teams will need to plan for an upswing in technical support as users return to their desks. Physical workspaces will have been reconfigured, hygiene processes put in place and the number of people limited for in-person meetings. Digital and physical workspaces will need to be designed for adaptability and resilience.

To meet health and safety demands, Forrester expects offices to introduce a number of measures including contact tracing, employee temperature measurements, safe zones in lifts and remote controlled robots with ultraviolet lights to sanitize surfaces. UV light is recognised as a reliable, antimicrobial technology.

There is a large amount of help available to help enterprises get over the complex challenge of opening up their offices for business again. Organisations such as the non-for-profit International Social Security Association (ISSA) and its Vision Zero campaign, designed to “promote a world without work-related accidents and illnesses”, have been advising on how to address virus risks in the workspace. ISSA has a news monitoring app so members can monitor COVID-related social security news from around the world.

Redesigning the workspace

The times of densification of the office space to save money are over, according to Forrester. In fact the trend is reversing due to the pandemic. Although overall office space will decline due to flexible working, the office space per employee is very likely to increase. Instead employers will provide modern open spaces designed for employees to collaborate, engage and innovate outside traditional rigid cubicle environments. A “Starbucksification” of the office space if you like.

These trends are accelerating innovative technological developments for the workspace and the adoption of devices and services. Mobile apps for scheduling meetings and contactless lift and light switches, for example, reduce the number of surfaces employees need to touch. The Orange Smart Office app enables employees to access a range of common office services like hot desks, room bookings and other resources such as telepresence and identification services. Other functions include personal identification.

The use of IoT and sensors to create “smart” office spaces is enabling employers to keep their employees safe and productive. Remote monitoring and real-time analytics, for example, can track what spaces are being used, where. This can help with reducing office density and monitoring social distancing policies.

Employees will soon realise the benefits of their new found spaces. Gartner predicts that by 2022, 60% of hybrid workers will prioritise a wellnessequipped smart office over a remote working environment. But to achieve this, enterprises need to start deploying advanced technologies now to create 24/7 wellness monitored safe office spaces, the analyst firm advises.

Technologies required include workspace management solutions, resource scheduling apps and artificial intelligence and IoT together with motion sensors and beacons for social distancing. Keeping ahead of virus outbreaks will require contract tracing, thermal imaging to test temperatures and wellness coaches, amongst other support networks for employees.

The pandemic has opened up opportunities for different ways of working. Not everyone, however, finds working from home easy or has the space for a home office. Technology will enable employees to confidently and safely return to the office environment.