The channel needs to cash in on the opportunity of remote work
I noticed some interesting results from Datapac this week, in a survey conducted by Censuswide of 200 IT decision-makers – which, I guess, is another way for saying “people who buy technology from the people who read this column”.
The headline figure was probably the finding that 96% of those surveyed were operating a hybrid working model. Five years on from the Covid-19 lockdown, that’s quite a legacy to have. True, some companies are trying to force employees to return to the office – often with threats of losing their jobs if they don’t – but that seems to be more of a US phenomenon than an Irish or European one.
In that vein, it’s interesting to note a story in The Register reporting that 40% of techies surveyed by Amsterdam-based recruitment company Randstad had resigned due to strict return to work policies. In addition, 56% had threatened to look for another job if they were unable to get the flexibility they wanted.
Returning to the Datapac report, it found that companies were still dealing with a range of issues, including work-life balance, affecting 39% and cyber security (cited by 34%). Another concern was communication and collaboration (reported by 31%) which is probably unsurprising when you adopt a regime where employees are dispersed between work and home.
Given that it’s been five years since lockdown, it’s slightly disappointing that just under half of those surveyed believed their infrastructure was only ‘somewhat’ or ‘not too’ capable of supporting hybrid work. I mean, surely, after five years, it should be better than that, don’t you think?
So, armed with what we know that some of the people who buy technology from the people who read this column think, it’s probably worth asking what can be done to make them more content with their hybrid working models because, let’s face it, no one is going back to the pre-Covid approach. Not here, at least.
This means that channel companies (and their vendor partners) should probably be doing more to make this model work more effectively for their customers. After all, if nearly half of the people surveyed believe the technology they’ve bought doesn’t do what they want as well as it should, that’s not exactly a resounding vote of confidence.
That said, I do wonder if some of those organisations are perhaps guilty of not being clear enough about what they required from their hybrid work infrastructure. After all, many companies have sought to increase the level of office-based working over time which would have had a knock-on effect on what they needed their infrastructure to deliver.
As someone who writes columns rather than sells technology (or runs a company that buys IT from the people who sell it), I’m not ideally placed to give a definitive solution for what needs to be done but it seems clear that channel partners can help their customers implement better tools and technology to improve their hybrid working infrastructure. The people who buy the technology can only buy what the people selling it are selling – even if they might sometimes be led to believe they’re buying something more.
Perhaps, though, with such a massive cultural shift taking place over such a short period of time, it’s to be expected. As is the attempt to return to the previous norm.
The widespread adoption of hybrid working is a recognition of the capabilities of IT in enabling a dramatic change in working practices while, simultaneously, highlighting its limitations (and the inertial resistance to that change among a certain section of the business world).
Nevertheless, the fact we live in a world of hybrid working is still a triumph for technology and for the people running the businesses that use it to give their employees that option. And for the people who sell it to them.
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