CV_Winter_21

Martin Vilaboy Editor-in-Chief martin@bekabusinessmedia.com Gerald Baldino Senior Editor gerald@bekabusinessmedia.com Percy Zamora Art Director percy@bekabusinessmedia.com Rob Schubel Digital Manager marketing@bekabusinessmedia.com Jen Vilaboy Ad Production Director jen@bekabusinessmedia.com Berge Kaprelian Group Publisher berge@bekabusinessmedia.com (480) 503-0770 Anthony Graffeo Publisher anthony@bekabusinessmedia.com (203) 304-8547 Nazal Parvin Associate Publisher nazal@bekabusinessmedia.com (415) 516-7053 Beka Business Media Berge Kaprelian President and CEO Corporate Headquarters 10115 E Bell Road, Suite 107 - #517 Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 Voice: 480.503.0770 Email: berge@bekabusinessmedia.com © 2021 Beka Business Media, All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in any form or medium without express written permission of Beka Business Media is prohibited. ChannelVision and the ChannelVision logo are trademarks of Beka Business Media After a challenging and frustrating year for most everyone, the providers of IT-delivered and cloud-based business communications, messaging, and collaboration technologies – as well as communications networks and local internet access – should pause a few moments to pat themselves on the back. After all, when the world was rocked, and offices across the country closed almost overnight, communications tools and technologies kept businesses connected and productive, for the most part, and in many cases did so smoother than operators of business IT networks thought possible. According to studies by McKinsey & Co., for example, respondents said their companies’ reactions to the work-from-home transition was on average 40 times faster than they thought possible before the pandemic. The movement of resources to the cloud, in particular, happened 25 times quicker than anticipated. “Before then, respondents say it would have taken more than a year to implement the level of remote working that took place during the crisis,” said McKinsey researchers. “In actuality, it took an average of 11 days to implement a workable solution, and nearly all of the companies have stood up workable solutions within a few months.” Indeed, several surveys and studies similar to McKinsey’s have found that organizations were not only able to keep pace with the rapid rate of changes faced in 2020 but were pleasantly surprised by how well their communications and IT resources were able to adapt and maintain productivity. According to surveys by Spiceworks, two-thirds of IT pros said their communications solutions effectively met business needs in 2019. That number rose to a full three-quarters of respon- dent in 2020 despite the greater challenges. A Harvard Business Journal study, meanwhile, found that 83 percent of businesses were satisfied with how their infrastructures handled the move to remote workforces. More than 80 percent of respondents said business continuity and employee collaboration improved or stayed the same after the move to remote, while three-quarters said the same about productivity. And satisfaction levels seem to have risen as the great experiment went on. In a July survey by PwC, 73 percent of organizations said the shift to remote had been successful. By November, those citing success rose to 83 percent. Spiceworks also noted a drop in 2020 in the use of shadow IT, suggesting some users were better serviced by staying on-platform with their new tools rather than going rogue for efficiency’s sake. All the while, organizations are showing huge willingness to accelerate their digital transformations. Surveys suggest they are ready to double-down after 2020 on the cloud-based solutions and technologies that help them enable readily adaptable, anywhere-connected, backed-up, remote and hybrid workforces. It’s almost as if the features and advantages cloud and IT-delivered communications providers have been evangelizing for years have now passed their first big test. And businesses seem grateful. Not that there weren’t challenges, lost sleep and headaches as folks tried to access resources, connect with co-workers or otherwise interoperate from their kitchen tables. Deals surely were lost. We all have our stories. And as we make this truly unprecedented acceleration toward hybrid workforces and off-site workers, many more challenges and headaches are sure to come. To the communications providers that can offer businesses some relief, it might be alright to smile a bit as you look forward and pat those backs. RemoteWorked LETTER 6 CHANNEL V ISION | January - February, 2021