Considering that 2020 was… less than great for many businesses, it should come as no surprise that there will likely be difficulties that carry on for some time into 2021. Naturally, these difficulties will require some new ideas and fresh thinking to properly resolve, as well as an openness to adopting innovative technologies. Let’s look ahead to some of the IT challenges we anticipate that 2021 will hold for businesses.
Reconsidering Where Work is Done
Before the events of 2020, the approach that businesses took to remote work (if any) effectively boiled down to enable 20 percent or so of their workforce being capable of working out-of-office while the remaining 80 percent stayed in the office. Once the various issues and events of 2020 came about, however, these trends effectively flipped for many—if not transitioning to remote entirely.
As a result, companies have needed to make various changes to not only enable their team members to work productively from home, but also to do so safely… a need that will not go away throughout 2021.
Depending on the device that a user is working on—and more specifically, who owns the device in question—different security protocols and processes need to be put in place. Remote monitoring and management will be crucial to continue, especially if remote work of any scale remains once the pressing need to work remotely passes.
Ensuring Uptime and Resisting Burnout
Taking the surge in remote work strategies into consideration, the matter of preserving productivity becomes another particularly pertinent topic to discuss. Uptime becomes the key word, as anything less than 100 percent is seen as a shortcoming… after all, if a business can’t provide that for its clients and customers, the trust that they’ve built up is going to diminish considerably. By maintaining their uptime, the business can instead take advantage of that trust in different ways that advance its operations.
With such an uncertain year just behind us, businesses will need to ensure that these clients can trust in their services.
Furthermore, to accomplish this fully, a business also must ensure that its team members are prepared to deliver these services as needed. This makes work fatigue and burnout a serious threat. To help minimize the potential for this outcome as employees are working from home, the solutions that they’re using must be reliable enough to avoid the chance of exacerbating employee frustration.
Reexamining Budget Allocation
Finally, with business finances in flux after the last year, the investments that businesses make into their tools will need to be reconsidered and adjusted to optimize them. This will require an examination of each solution’s return on investment and how well it serves its intended purpose.
This means that 2021 will likely see some shifts in how businesses invest in cloud-based services as compared to locally hosted solutions, and what level of priority is given to advanced technologies like artificial intelligence and other similar solutions.
From where we stand now, 2021 stands to be a year of shifts and shakeups—make sure that your business has the support it needs to make it through. GeekBox IT can help. Find out what we can do to assist your operations by calling (336) 790-1000.