Transition then Transform

“Our approach was to ensure we delivered a transition service initially but then provided transforming capabilities moving forward.” 

The above sentence from Mitel’s UK Sales Director, Nick Riggott, epitomises the role of the IT industry over the last 12 months. 

IT providers needed to act at lightning speed to create remote infrastructures as we scrambled towards remote working. 

Many of us took an ad hoc, that’ll-do-for-now approach to our set-ups at home, but it’s now become clear that the impact of the pandemic on our working culture will long exceed the relatively short-term restrictions we’ve had to live with. 

This requires a different approach from both businesses and IT providers. 

“Prior to the pandemic organisations were having these posturing conversations around digital transformation strategies and how they were going to approach it over the next few years,” Riggott said. 

“But then it was ‘we need to do something’. They didn’t know how long it would be required for so there were so many points up in the air. 

“Ultimately there’s a medium to long–term view around supporting a hybrid workforce. 

“Organisations now need to look at all of their forward-thinking requirements as we look to the future.”  

These forward-thinking requirements may, in part, require the removal of some quick fixes or applications used that have become more permanent than initially planned.  

Riggott went on to explain that many businesses will have adopted shadow IT to continue communicating and collaborating with as little disruption as possible – even if this wasn’t necessarily the most efficient and secure way of doing so. 

But he added that this is not sustainable in the long term. Businesses now need to add continuity, consistency and longevity to their communications strategies. 

“They’ve got to try and consolidate that down into what is actually going to be required to deliver that continuous experience for all workers and ultimately for their customers,” he said. 

“Shadow IT covers up some real pain points from an organisational perspective. It prevents from really effective and seamless communication and collaboration, it challenges security, it challenges bandwidth requirements” 

“Some customers will have embarked on medium-term contracts; so, it’s not about capitalising on what has been an awful situation, it’s about delivering a transition service initially and then transforming.” 

Helping, not capitalising

Riggott said that it’s been important for the IT industry to not take advantage of businesses that have been struggling and in desperate need of IT support. 

He added that partners have needed to take a more consultative approach, citing the work of award–winning Platinum Mitel partner Olive – which was recently acquired by Onecom in a move that creates the largest business-to-business mobile, fixed-line and cloud specialist in the UK. 

Nick Beardsley, Enterprise Director at Onecom, said that the firm’s attitude has been to aid customers through the difficult times, often at speed, before helping them develop a longer-term plan when they’ve been in a position to do so. 

“British Red Cross is a valued customer of ours and they needed to set up a call centre quickly to support the UK public in time of crisis,” he said. 

“Its Coronavirus hotline was live within seven working days from inception by talking to them about their operating model and the outcome they wanted. It just had to work. 

“Our relationship with them has gone from strength to strength and we wouldn’t have been able to achieve it without our three organisations working shoulder-to-shoulder. It was much, much bigger than the technology alone.” 

While many industries, particularly hospitality, have struggled over the last year, the vast majority of the IT world has flourished.  

It is also true that the majority have done so without being unnecessarily opportunistic. It’s only right that the success has come hand in hand with giving flexibility to customers who, at times, won’t have known if they were coming or going. 

Even as the UK gets closer to the light at the end of the tunnel, many businesses will still not know how their company is going to look culturally in a few months’ time. 

A hybrid working model is generally accepted as the way forward, but even that is difficult to envisage at this stage. 

“Our industry has been fortunate because we deliver business-critical services that, for some customers, have been a lifeline to remaining operational. It meant wrapping our arms around customers in need, whilst continuing to support the increasing levels of new businesses ready to take decisive action on their remote working strategies. We felt an obligation to support UK PLC and quickly introduced offers reflective of the situation which would allow decisions to be made quickly and be implemented at speed, without long-term financial commitments,” Beardsley said. 

“Some organisations have had a testing time and we need to continue to support them with technical capability, commercial support, and flexible, scalable services in order to remain operationally agile. What 2020 made abundantly clear was that nobody has a crystal ball. 

“All they do know is they are adapting their operating model and now thinking about what going back to work looks like and it’s certainly hybrid. 

“Nobody is talking about wholesale going back to the office. What they need is communication and collaboration technologies that can adapt to change.” 

So, while we may have moved through the transition phase, the period of transformation is far from over.