For the last year, we’ve been talking to our clients about their v3.0 and what this needs to look like for their business. Creating the right IT infrastructure that delivers operational excellence, digital proficiency, innovation and business agility is essential to delivering the best customer experience and thriving in the modern age.

Now, more than ever, creating the next version of your business is critical, merely for survival.

In recent months we’ve witnessed some truly challenging times, where businesses have been stress tested, staff powering through in the face of adversity and technology pushed to the very limits of its capabilities. And we’re not out of the woods yet. On average, pandemics last 12-15 months so organisations need to take appropriate action if they’re to survive.

New priorities have come into the fold – such as thwarting cyberattacks, and ensuring your staff is trained in spotting a phishing attempt. Whether your team is returning to work or is settled in to working remotely for the foreseeable, staying alert to security breaches inside your organisation is arguably a more complex operation now than it ever was.

But what happens when we emerge?

It’s pretty certain that life as we knew it will have changed – and hopefully in many ways this will be for the better. Community bonds will be stronger, our acceptance of new technology greater, and collaboration and communication enriched for the better.

What is the strategic response?

The idea of the ‘new normal’ is an interesting one, and in the current climate, much of the discussion has focused on remote working. Given that the UK is relaxing its lockdown, the majority of the workforce currently working from home, this is perfectly understandable.

But thinking about how digital transformation will embrace the ‘new normal’ is about far more than this.

1. It’s about adopting a cloud-first strategy, where organisations commit to consider cloud computing before any alternative in order to leverage new software, platforms and infrastructure on a subscription basis.
2. It’s about ensuring that the platforms that you are running on are optimised to a degree that means you are lean and agile. This ensures that while you scale, your business still serves its users and clients better than ever. Your workloads are run efficiently on updated platforms, with updated security features, and your overall IT costs have been optimised to ensure you are not paying more than you have to. It simply makes sense to ensure that cost optimisation is part of your new normal routine. Read on to find out how we approach cost optimisation with our clients.
3. It’s about hardening your security posture to protect your organisation against opportune cyber criminals, actively seeking vulnerabilities within your organisation to exploit.
4. Consider how you need to evolve from how you have rolled out remote working to date. On a tactical level, for some organisations, initially it was simply about getting laptops to their people. As the CEO of one IT reseller put it, “At the moment, people are buying PCs in the same way they are buying loo rolls.” If you are onboarding new team members, you may prioritise ensuring that they have tools that are built for their specific access levels, and that said endpoints are managed effectively, centrally and behind a single pane of glass view for all users. If you are trying to maintain productivity and collaboration in a regulated sector, an all-remote scenario is a challenge due to data governance requirements. Consider an update to ensure you have a scalable platform and familiar collaboration tools with these features built in, and an end-user experience that is even better than when you were all on-premise.

Try it. Why not consider running a proof of concept to see how this could change your workforce, and your bottom line, for the better?

Digital transformation: fast forward

The term of ‘digital transformation’ can mean different things to different people, as the requirements of a digital transformation will vary based on the organisation’s maturity. To a degree, the current crisis shapes what the expectation is of digital transformation – and we see that organisations are becoming more opportunistic, adventurous even, in their approach. Right now digital transformation projects are advancing at the speed of days, not weeks or months.

For example, imagine a business that’s currently struggling to get its employees online and working remotely. To digitise this sort of organisation is going to require a dramatic change when compared to one that already embraces a cloud-first mentality.

According to research from Deloitte, less than half (44%) of organisations feel adequately prepared for industry disruptions due to digital trends – so if you’re hesitant about digital transformation, you’re really not alone. What we are seeing right now, however, that this sentiment is rapidly shifting, and in some organisations, the appetite for change has never been greater.

Creating your organisation’s ‘new normal’ under v3.0, is about creating the next version of your business to bring you up to the league that you need to be playing in. It requires you to consider everything from your strategy through to your technology, processes, people and organisational culture, and your customers.

Then carefully balancing these elements is reliant on:

• Forming strategic partnerships so you have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to create a v3.0 that’s right for your organisation
• Assessing your organisation’s readiness to ensure the right changes are made.
• Assessing your organisation’s current IT spend to look for cost optimisation opportunities.
• Presenting the opportunities to the senior leadership team in a way that they are understood and accepted.
• Following a proven methodology and sharing a phased roadmap to ensure the changes are understood before they are rolled out and fully adopted across the organisation.

The problem is, unless you are an IT organisation, you probably have a skills gap, lack the appropriate knowledge to determine what your digital transformation should look like, and don’t have the methodology to make it happen.

What is unique about Atech?

The strongest partnerships are those forged between like-minded individuals and parties. You will need a partner to support you, while you get on with business-as-usual and keeping your customers and stakeholders happy. We understand the challenges of a growing business.

We are passionate about helping growing businesses scale because they experience the same challenges and pain points as their larger competitors, and are open to the same opportunities, but don’t necessarily have access to the tools and expertise at a reasonable price point.

In SMEs, the personal touch is everything – it’s why your customers are loyal to you and eager to sing your praises at every opportunity. At Atech, our core mission is to be ‘addicted to service’ and we actively seek out partnerships where we can work hand-in-hand with organisations, where we know our work will have a big impact.

It doesn’t matter if you’re focussed on delivering a super slick and shiny customer experience, trimming costs to survive in the current climate, or simply getting laptops out to your team to enable remote working – we have experience of delivering every type of digital transformation for the modern age.

We also believe in enterprise-grade technology at small business prices, which is why we build our services the way we do.

We are addicted to service, and we really do act like it too:

A uniquely challenging week in IT, yet your team still find the time to provide top notch service. No one can get laptops anywhere, yet Holly finds 6 and then the service desk turns them round in 3 days! Jas even did a home delivery on Wednesday of one machine. We appreciate what Atech have done for us this week in keeping OXVR moving – we could not have done it without you.”

We’ll make time for you

We’re always here for you – regardless of whether you’re an existing Atech client or not. We are a community and we need to pull together to help each other in order to create the IT infrastructure that supports your ‘new normal’.

So whether you need to review your current IT spend and think about how to do things differently, or you need laptops built and shipped, you need to keep everyone on every device working, or you are bold and want to use this time to fast forward your digital transformation, we know you have your sights set on creating a new version of your business –  so get in touch and we’ll help.