IT workers have been our crutch and our saviour throughout the past two years. If it wasn’t for those that transitioned our businesses from the office to remote working, how many industries would still be operational today? How many companies would still be providing critical services? It has been a tough ride for our IT leaders, but it isn’t over just yet. While COVID brought about immense pressures, the ongoing burden of keeping the world ticking over is enough to overwhelm even our strongest team members.

Data is currently the word on everyone’s lips. Organisations know that they want to harness the power of their data, but it can be difficult to know where to start and how to use the available budget in the most effective way possible.

In March, the UK government’s much-discussed Integrated Review outlined a total revamp of UK defence thinking and a £41.5bn budget to boot. Yet while the paper spans several industries, technology, science and foreign policy, media coverage seemed to reduce the review down to an overly simplistic choice between cutting troop numbers and upping cash spent on technological capabilities. 

With so many people now proficient technology users at home and at work, which today are often the same place, they understandably want to have a say in the technology they use. There are two key trends driving this change. Firstly, many people have already shifted to using their personal devices for work during the pandemic, perhaps when starting a new job in this period or waiting for a work laptop to be sent to them. Secondly, that younger generations want to work on technology devices that are familiar and comfortable.

With these trends shaping how businesses attract and retain employees, it is becoming imperative for organisations to offer choice. For many in the working population, this means having the choice to use Apple devices for work. In fact, three out of four employees say they would choose Apple . This is not just a passing preference but a deciding factor on where they would choose to work - so employers should take note. By giving employees more flexibility, they can reap a world of benefits.

Not long ago, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) were seen by many as ‘technologies of the future’ that most businesses wouldn’t need to consider adopting until at least 2030. The pandemic changed that. The need for social distancing has accelerated the use of AR and VR in the real world. That in turn, has led to the discovery of new and immediate ways these technologies can be used across industries, offering real potential for even those who were previously wary.

As COVID-19 restrictions ease in the UK, businesses up and down the country are taking part in a great experiment of our times: hybrid working. The pandemic has changed the way we work for good, with some companies like Facebook and Twitter having announced plans to embrace remote working permanently.

Before the pandemic, while many universities had the ability to record lectures and distribute them digitally, the technology wasn’t used to its full potential and, in most cases, students were actively discouraged from relying on online teaching. For obvious reasons, this has now all changed. Last year, when universities were forced online, they did so rapidly and with surprising ease. We saw the adoption of platforms like Microsoft Teams come into play quickly and the sector managed to pivot to almost entirely remote working, learning and teaching overnight. 

Globally, business leaders are leaning into — and leveraging — data to accelerate growth and gain competitive advantage. As industry moves more deeply into an ‘age of insight,’ where innovation and customer growth are interlocked with data collection, protection, retrieval, and analysis, secure and comprehensive backup is essential. 

Backup and recovery need a radical rethink because most of the legacy solutions commonly found in businesses today were designed over a decade ago. 

Back then, backup was a low-cost insurance policy for data. Companies used incumbent vendors and patched together solutions, trying to minimise costs by spreading data across different infrastructure and media. 

Fast. Change. New. These describe the business mandate, purpose and imperatives for developers. When stable, reliable and secure describe the business mandate of Operations, it’s no wonder they’re said to be like oil and water, working in silos with hard barriers between their purposes and needs.