In a new age where most of the population is working remotely, could now be the time to look at transforming the way your business works, for good?

 

Hear from our account director, Alastair Lumley on his personal experiences of working remotely, and how he sees the workplace changing.

The world has changed as we know it and there are no signs that we will go back to “normal” any time soon. It, therefore, poses the question, do we ever want to return to normal? 

We have all suddenly had to adopt a new way of working. Personally I’ve fallen victim to poor WiFi, seeing nothing but a freeze-frame of a colleague only knowing they are there by the sudden boom of their voice. My colleagues have had to deal with my face being too close to the camera, or my persistent shouting as I refuse to use headphones, maintaining that my set up is the best! We’ve all probably had our own experiences of suddenly working from home and things we’d want to change, but these are all teething problems right, this is now the new normal?  

This is why now is the perfect time to look at the tools we use, understand how the wider workforce has adopted a digital-first approach, and really evaluate the business. To put it bluntly, the shock is over, now how do we make it work for us? 

Netpremacy has recently been announced as Google’s Global Partner of the year for Work Transformation – Enterprise. This is a result of over a decades worth of work & experience, implementing some of the largest transformation projects with the likes of, Just Eat, Monzo, Morrisons, Ovo, DFS… the list goes on.

With this in mind, we wanted to share a few things to remember/consider when looking at a digital transformation, they may be obvious but, here they are written down. 

Netpremacy’s 5 top tips

• Staff are the most important asset. Provide them with the right tools and you’ve won half the battle, we employed them for a reason so let’s ensure they can do their job to the best of their ability
• Change for the right reasons. Yes a cashable ROI is important, but it’s also imperative we do this for the right reasons, do we want a more flexible working environment, are we looking to reduce operational costs at the same time?
• Are we looking for a younger workforce, do we need to become more collaborative & innovative to react to market demands? Therefore do the tools we use need to attract that demographic and drive the adoption across the wider organisation 
• What are our competitors doing? Have they changed how they operate? Are they making changes we arent and benefiting from them? Are we beginning to fall behind? Or, are we the first to change, can we get ahead of the curve? 
• What’s happening on a global scale? (particularly important right now) Can we learn from other countries and their success or even mistakes? 

 

These are just a few things to take into account when we start a transformation project and very high level questions. Once we start to answer these questions, we can begin to focus on choosing the right tool for the job, and that is where Netpremacy can help. 

At Netpremacy, Google & in particular G Suite has kept us running like clockwork over the last few months. We simply picked up our Chromebooks, in some cases monitors (large scale project planning to do), opened them up at home, and away we went. 

We have teams creating training plans using docs, teams supporting customers via GoogleMeet ensuring they can still operate. Senior management has been able to constantly update the company via weekly meetings ensuring we know what’s going on. Our delivery teams are creating project plans, our Account Directors are creating proposals to roll out GoogleMeet for free to give those who need it most access to vital tools. Our developers are still…..developing. It’s business as usual here at Netpremacy.

The best bit is, that as we do this it’s all super-fast, reliable, and secure as it’s all floating above our heads in the cloud (i am aware that is not strictly true). None of the struggles or delays in wondering how the hell we were going to operate, we just did and it worked. 

What I’m trying to say is, if ever there was a time to take a step back, pause for a second and look at the last 10 weeks now’s the time, but use that reflection and think forward as this is likely to become our new normal. As we all begin to return to the office let’s make sure we have the right tools, our teams have access to everything they need and try to use the positives to build the next generations’ way of working. 

In order to help share some lessons and experience, we’re running a series of webinars that are focusing on how tools such as G Suite, Chrome & Googles wider cloud platform are helping us prepare for a  return to the office, as well as specific industries and how they are coping. 

To find out more about how digital transformation can dramatically improve your company’s way of working, take a look at our digital transformation whitepaper. Or, if you would like a more informal chat, please contact me at alumley@netpremacy.com.