By Ralph Berndt, Sales and Marketing Director at Syrex

To say that 2020 was a shock to the system is an understatement. And while the current market is still an uncomfortable space to be in, companies are slowly adjusting to the new normal. A significant concern for decision-makers now is ensuring the productivity of their workforce in this fragmented landscape.

Most businesses are looking at finding more effective ways of integrating a remote employee base while still maintaining the company culture and driving a new kind of work ethic. While technology certainly does play a part in this regard, preparing for an uncertain future requires more than getting the nuts and bolts in place. Companies must prepare themselves both technically and strategically for what might come down the line in a digitally transformed environment.

In many respects, it comes down to a people-first mindset to equip employees with the means to access data and essential systems regardless of where they are. This entails ensuring relevant connectivity is in place as is the means to keep the link between the remote worker and the organisational back-end as secure as possible.

A cloud transformation

Following the hard lockdown of last year, organisations have had to redefine their outlooks and consider the role that the cloud will play in this regard. This means finding the right partner that will assist them in considering all aspects of this transition.

A multi-cloud landscape requires a vision that integrates the various layers associated with driving business forward in a distributed environment Whether this is last mile connectivity, access to hosted collaboration solutions, backup and disaster recovery, and security, there is no universal approach that will work. It is about working with a trusted service provider to develop an effective strategy that helps with the transition in a least disruptive way as possible.

Bespoke design

Having the right system in place that reflects both the existing infrastructure and the potential for growth and adopting more innovative technology is a key part of the multicloud puzzle Companies cannot control what the economy, government, and even the pandemic will do. However, they can control their ability to manage this.

The best way to do so is through balancing technology innovation with an understanding of how people are working and engaging in this new normal. Working from home might mean employees are struggling with connectivity, or even in getting their hardware to work optimally with back-end corporate systems. Yes, getting the hardware and solutions in place to enable this is vital, but it does require the business to understand the issues from an employee perspective.

This is a crazy (and brave) new world. Those companies open to rapidly adapting their traditional ways of thinking to this will be the ones primed for growth.