As economic forecasts become ever more gloomy, traditional wisdom says businesses should exercise caution, restrict investment and avoid major spending. But challenging times call for bold thinking, and we take a look at why now is the perfect time to go on the offensive and make sure your digital roadmap enables you to survive and thrive.
How bad is the pain?
Business owners are battling against inflation and the knock-on effect of rising costs of energy, products, fuel, staff, and training. The Bank of England predicts the UK recession is likely to last through 2023, and we have a war in Ukraine that is fuelling a humanitarian as well as economic disaster. Add into the mix the increasing sophistication and rising number of cyberattacks, and the result is a perfect storm facing every organisation.
The industry stats bear out what we see on the ground, with Gartner’s Emerging Risk Reports for Q2 2022 ranking the top five emerging risks as:
- Economic downturn
- Escalation of conflict in Europe
- State-sponsored cyber attacks
- Energy price inflation
- Shortage of skills in the latest technologies
- Key material shortages
While these are all external factors and outside the direct control of a business, a focus on digital transformation can help you to mitigate the effects.
Things you can do right now
- Review what is working for you – and what isn’t
Our years of experience tell us that you are probably running your business using products, services and support agreements which you suspect are no longer serving you, but it’s a picture that is difficult to unravel.
Which is why we developed our wraparound Northstar service, which aligns technology and IT best practices with your business goals.
Northstar’s pillars are the creation and ongoing delivery of a flexible, scaleable and resilient modern workplace; the transformation to an aligned cloud infrastructure; and industry leading security to provide resilience, protection and reliability.
Using Assess, Design, Transform and Operate methodology, we start by benchmarking your IT maturity, and through a proactive partnership we take you through to a level of IT maturity that supports and protects your organisation, drives progress, and empowers your people.
Using tools such as Microsoft’s free Modern Workplace assessment, Northstar examines and reviews every detail of your infrastructure. For instance should you be looking at switching to an on-premise data centre model; do you have legacy on-premise security services that are no longer fit for purpose in a hybrid cloud world; is your phone system properly integrated to deliver a smooth service to clients; could you be making significant savings on third party services; can you streamline licences and reduce support costs?
This in depth analysis can illuminate murky corners of your business, which if they are not causing a problem yet, will almost certainly hold you back in the future, and are likely to be costing you money.
Future proofing costs is vital in these recessionary times. Fixed price utility contracts are coming to an end for legacy data centres and seeing some go from profit to loss, which will impact on the renewal price their customers pay. Any company with a data centre is susceptible to rising energy costs, but moving your workload to the cloud can still allow savings to be made. Microsoft is already ahead of the game, with energy costs tied down and baked into prices so you are protected from bill shock. Its latest study shows Microsoft Azure cloud platform can be up to 93% more energy efficient and up to 98% more carbon efficient than on-premise solutions.
Reviewing and optimising company-wide spending ahead of renewals mean savings, and that will improve outgoings and cash flow, and put you in the best possible position in the face of the recession.
- Secure hybrid working
If you’re not one of the organisations committed to a permanent hybrid working model utilising cloud technology, you’re missing out on the cost and efficiency advantages.
The ONS shows that 24% of the UK workforce is now hybrid working, thanks to the rapid adoption of tools and software such as Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop infrastructure, which allows secure, permission-based access to systems and data, from any device, in any location.
Scaleable, flexible and cost effective, VDI provides peace of mind against security threats, using intelligent security to continually and automatically patch and update systems and user-facing software to guard against security breaches. It also maintains a smooth joiners, movers and leavers process, and simplifies compliance and asset management.
It brings people benefits too, reducing commuting time and costs, and supporting sustainability policies that contribute to Environmental, Social and Governance reporting as the UK moves towards Net Zero targets.
To get the best out of VDI-supported hybrid working, make sure your IT partner has Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop Specialisation status. HTG were one of the first IT companies in Europe to attain the advanced specialisation, and as a Microsoft multiple Advanced Specialist Partner we are now one of the UK’s leading remote working specialists.
- Embrace the Internet of Things (IoT)
Millions of pounds have been invested in developing Microsoft Azure Internet of Things (IoT), which can help you reduce energy and service costs. This collection of Microsoft-managed cloud services connect, monitor, and control billions of IoT assets, working across three components:
The physical objects such as industrial equipment, devices, or sensors, which connect to the cloud.
Information collected by the objects, which is analysed and turned into actionable knowledge either by people or through artificial intelligence (AI).
People and how they respond to those insights and connect them to their business, as well as the systems and tools they use.
Combining the power of AI technologies with IoT infrastructure creates highly efficient operations and enhances analytics and data management. And every business wants some of that.
Focus on your digital transformation roadmap
It’s comfortable to carry on doing what you’ve always done, in the way you’ve always done it. But the Covid pandemic has forced a major step change in the business environment, and business leaders need to take a long look at whether products, services and contracts still align with business needs and outcomes.
By prioritising your digital investments and using critical success factors to monitor progress, you can take a more offensive approach to enable growth – even in the teeth of a recession.
Get in touch with our experts if you want your organisation to be in the best shape to ride out what lies ahead.
Share
