In the previous issue of Three I talked of how one of the things I enjoy most about my role is speaking to our customers about the topics and concerns that demand their attention.
Just six months ago the hot topics were FinOps, transformation versus optimisation and TechQuilibrium.
How things have changed since then! I’m still able to get out into the marketplace, though I’m now doing this virtually rather than in person, and it seems there has been a 180-degree shift in our customers’ agendas and strategies. There are now three different topics taking up the lion’s share of our conversations. And it will come as no surprise to anyone that they are all coloured and influenced by the global pandemic that has had such far-reaching effects on all of us this year.
The first is cost optimisation. Many industries and organisations have taken a big hit financially and needed to tighten their belts or, at the very least, adjust their operations. These organisations are looking at ways of reducing operating costs to ensure they are running as efficiently as possible. Cloud spend is a good place to start an IT optimisation project; it can be easy to overlook services that have been spun up, but not decommissioned when they are no longer required. It’s also no longer one-size-fits-all, so you may be driving a Maserati but only need a Mazda. It’s about right sizing services so that they deliver the intended outcome in a more cost-effective way.
The second topic, also as a result of the effects of COVID-19, is business continuity. Most larger organisations have long had BCPs (Business Continuity Plans) in place to prepare them for unexpected disasters, but this situation is very different to events or other crises we’ve seen in the last few years.
Having so many staff working from home requires a very different approach. Whereas many BCPs allow for a percentage of an organisation’s staff needing to work remotely, at least temporarily, the reality of entire workforces doing their jobs from home is new. It requires substantial planning and preparation – particularly in the IT area, as that workforce needs reliable access to services to do their jobs.
This naturally leads to the third most common topic of conversation – security. Many people working from home are doing so on company supplied laptops, with remote access solutions connecting them to their corporate systems, but there are also many others using home PCs and devices to make those same connections to corporate systems. We’ve seen an increase in customers looking to understand how they can help secure their environments, specifically at the end point.
You can read more about this issue and the ways of solving it in our article Trust no one where Aruba’s Mark Verbloot discusses possible solutions to the problem of remote working security.
How has your organisation coped during the events of 2020 and what topics are top of mind for you and your workforce?