Organisations of all sizes, across all industries, have had short- and long-term digital transformation processes in place for some time now. With cumbersome legacy systems continuing to show their limitations and ongoing drives for new efficiencies and cost savings, the path to the Cloud is simply a logical one, helping organisations develop the flexibility, scalability, and operational resilience required to navigate the shifting digital landscape.
Until the early months of 2020, organisations navigated this journey at their own pace, with some embracing full-scale digital transformation over a relatively short period of time to access the full range of potential benefits, and others proceeding in a more phased manner, in order to minimise any potential disruption to daily operations.
But COVID-19 made large-scale digital transformation a necessity for organisations across the UK, with organisations having to adjust to a distributed workforce virtually overnight and put systems and processes in place to minimise any disruptions and maintain customer confidence. The way numerous organisations have successfully navigated these challenges, and helped their customers do the same has demonstrated the true value of a truly world-class IT infrastructure, and omnichannel tools to optimise customer engagement.
So, as we consider the imminent end of lockdown, how we can we best act on the lessons learnt - both to boost profitability and service quality, and ensure we are properly prepared for any future COVID-scale shifts in the landscape?
Developing a holistic approach to IT service delivery
At EXPO.e, we regularly speak to IT companies who are currently focusing on the most challenging opportunities available to them, in order to provide a strong foundation for future growth, and position themselves as invaluable technology partners for their customers in the years ahead. In many cases, this has meant expanding their overall service portfolios in direct response to their customers' singular challenges, promising a holistic service wrap that optimises efficiency and cost control, with zero compromise in performance or availability.
It's certainly a challenge, but the potential rewards are great. Nonetheless, is expanding their internal capabilities necessarily the right path for all organisations, considering the cost involved (in terms of both time and resources)? Could there be another way forward?
The value of a trusted partner network
We believe we've already seen it…
EXPO.e's own channel partner ecosystem has been essential to our journey through COVID-19, allowing us to pool our capabilities and resources and driving a range of new innovations in response to the challenges faced by our customers and end users. Cultivating this level of trust and collaboration allows all parties involved to procure services in a more streamlined, sustainable fashion, utilising their combined service portfolios to their fullest effect - a model we believe will have a huge impact beyond weathering the challenges of COVID-19.
As we touched on above, the need for flexibility, agility, and scalability has been of paramount importance over the past year - a trend that looks set to continue for the foreseeable future. With hybrid working now fully established and customers and end users moving beyond their business' immediate survival to their long-term growth, the agility offered by partnership-based service portfolios is sure to prove essential.
The question then, is how organisations can best start cultivating such partnerships and demonstrate their value to their own customers and end users. We predict that there will not be a single model for success in this regard - organisations, their industries, and their customers are simply too diverse for this to be viable. Organisations must therefore be ready and willing to consider their service portfolio in parallel with their long-term business goals and their customers' requirements and expectations. Where there are any gaps, they must honestly ask themselves whether it will be more beneficial to expand their internal capabilities or partner with a specialist. The question then becomes how to select the right partners - a topic that lies beyond the scope of this blog.
Trust and collaboration helped carry us through COVID-19. Now it's time to see how it can drive sustainable growth and innovation in the post-pandemic world. Whether it's as a partner or a technology provider, we look forward to accompanying you on the next steps of this journey!
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