Is Covid-19 helping to drive business innovation?
NEC’s Guy Phelps has seen a change in the IT/AV landscape within his financial industry customers.
Corporate organisations had been slowly moving towards more flexible working with ‘working from home’ becoming more accepted within company culture.
It was a work in progress. Perhaps one day a week? Dipping corporate toes into the agile ocean . . .
Nobody expected to be plunged head-first into the swirling waters in a sink or swim scenario . . .
Guy Phelps, Corporate Sales Manager
Incredibly, with AV/IT swiftly issuing the proverbial life jacket, organisations quickly adapted in order to continue to operate in some shape or form. The current crisis was not expected nor welcomed, but having survived at least the initial shock, business is benefiting from a new-found confidence in remote working.
Introducing new systems, testing and setting up the latest equipment, gaining approvals, launching unfamiliar software applications, following protocols and influencing deep seated company culture – it all takes time . . . And yet, this all happened within two weeks!! It wasn’t easy, granted, but here we are witnessing business, not ‘as usual’ perhaps, but ‘operating’ at least to some extent nonetheless. And it works!
Back in February, who could have envisaged call centre staff providing full customer service, 24/7, from their kitchen table? Or banking staff and traders operating from their spare room? They can’t function from a single laptop - they have multiple screen configurations, all the digital estate, associated infrastructure and security in place for instant visualisation of data feeds – at home!
Of course, the current situation won’t last forever. Quite apart from families wishing to reclaim their kitchen worktop, much of business operations will return to the office space, especially in the financial sector, but what will be the lasting legacy?
Flexibility.
Bring your own device initiatives? Yes! why not? Try out new software applications? Yes, let’s see how it works. Realtime collaboration and remote working? Sure! IT departments have been given free reign, they’ve proven it can be done, and they have the confidence to make it happen.
The context has changed. Barriers and obstacles have been removed. If an outcome or process requires a certain software application, IT/AV departments or even local working groups are empowered to seek the best solution to make it happen. It’s about being flexible to support innovative thinking.
NEC is well placed to partner businesses in their new-found confidence. Our open, modular platforms support the flexibility they need to try out new systems and software before they commit.
NEC InfinityBoard for instance welcomes any infrastructure, it can be tailored any which way to suit the need and reconfigured or upgraded at a later date as required. For whiteboarding, real time collaboration and remote working, it’s the tool that adapts and reshapes to fit the desired outcome.
Find out more about NEC’s meeting and conferencing solutions, supporting flexible meeting and collaboration scenarios for meeting rooms and remote working
Meeting & Collaboration Solutions