Workplaces have experienced a seismic shift over the last 12 months. But what has this taught us about how businesses – particularly those that are historically office-based – will adapt going forward?
As thousands of companies around the UK raced to their home offices, kitchen tables and spare bedrooms in March, the immediate task faced by IT and operations teams was to ensure that business as usual was maintained. And while it’s safe to say that some organisations fared better than others, the overall agility and willingness to adapt shown by the business community was admirable.
Now, as we look towards 2021 and companies begin to lay out their roadmap for their long-term future in a post-Covid era, it’s time to appraise the extent of organisations’ digital transformations will look like – and whether the traditional office IT infrastructure is gone forever.
We’ve already seen tech giants like Twitter state that they will no longer tie employees to an office-based existence and will make remote work supported by a cloud infrastructure an option extended to staff “forever”. Twitter said: “The past few months have proven we can make that work. So, if our employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen.”
Conversely, Barclays boss Jes Staley was quoted as saying, “It is important to get people back together in physical concentrations . . . We want our people back together, to make sure we ensure the evolution of our culture and our controls, and I think that will happen over time.”
It is evident that different businesses and different business models have varying requirements and demands. But whether an organisation believes its future lies in remote work or an office-based environment, one thing’s for sure: flexibility and security need to be at the heart of any decision.
The rise of cloud
As the number of remote workers in the UK has exploded in 2020, it is hardly surprising that cloud providers such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Amazon (AWS), have experienced significant growth. By May alone, Google were quoting its first quarter cloud revenue as being up 52% on the year-ago quarter. A similar picture was painted at Microsoft’s intelligent cloud group where a 27% year on year gain was documented, while Amazon reported its cloud revenue to be up by a third.
Even for those organisations committed to a future in the physical office – having the flexibility to pivot to home or remote work at any time has never been more apparent than in a fast-moving and digitally dependent world.
From a business continuity perspective, facilitating remote work isn’t a choice; it’s a necessity. We have seen countless examples of businesses expanding to the cloud during the pandemic in order to maintain business as usual. And in many cases, that digital transformation has been proven to enhance efficiency and streamline businesses processes that were previously disjointed or more manual in nature.
Cloud has demonstrated its value by increasing the resilience and responsiveness of business operations and, in many cases, improving security. By working coherently and cohesively on a business-wide cloud platform, an organisation can manage the information security risks relating to remote working much more effectively. Working with trusted third-party providers allows companies to benefit from cutting-edge firewalls and other state-of-the-art protections. While a team may be physically disparate and isolated, the risk surface area can be minimised and monitored more effectively through a single, secure cloud platform – such as AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud.
Google talks extensively about the potential of Cloud to keep workers connected and productive. By integrating calendars, Drive, Google Meet for video conferencing and all the other applications within G Suite, the tech giant enables businesses to replicate the connectivity that would otherwise require face-to-face interactions in an office environment.
From holding meetings and running workshops to providing training opportunities and even social events between employees, Google’s cloud tools are keeping teams synchronised and pulling in the same direction. From Vodafone to the NHS to schools and universities, Google has demonstrated that its applications can make it easy for all to access and manage data in real-time, no matter where they are.
Will businesses do away with on-premise IT resources altogether?
Not necessarily. While expansion, and sometimes entire migrations, to the cloud has been rapid and widespread in 2020, many believe that on-premise software installed to a company’s own servers and protected behind a firewall will still have a supporting role to play.
For a long time, in-house servers were the only option and in thousands of companies and even in a world familiar with cloud technology, it has taken a global Pandemic to force their transition to cloud. And while the benefits of cloud computing are undeniable, it is still possible that on-premise infrastructure can retain importance – as part of a hybrid model.
After all, on-premise applications are reliable, secure and provide a level of autonomy that isn’t retained by those businesses that have opted for a wholesale migration. What should be stated is that whether it’s on-premise, hybrid or cloud, every organisation has a vested interest in maintaining security and reliability of applications.
If you are unsure how to manage the future of your business’s IT infrastructure, the expert team here at Right Click can help you to find the right solution – both for the immediate and the long-term future. We take the time to understand your organisation’s requirements, goals and ambitions, so that we can recommend the right approach for you. We don’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach; instead we are committed to getting you the best results so that your business can grow.
At Right Click we are cloud service agnostic, so we will never push you towards a third-party provider because of a hidden agenda or for financial gain. In fact, we pass on the discounts and benefits we receive as wholesale customers of platforms like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.