To say the past year has been challenging would be an understatement. But as we look back on the challenges our organisations have overcome - and the ones we expect to face going forward - it's important to not lose sight of the fact that people are the lifeblood of any company.

Throughout these unprecedented times, many Resellers and Systems Integrators have been forced to furlough team members or reduce headcount, creating leaner operations in order to weather the economic downturn. But as we now approach an economic return and ramp up our trading levels, these resourcing gaps can limit the services that resellers can take to market.

Passwords are often more associated with individual and consumer cyber security, but they are an essential part of an organisation's overall security posture. For example, you wouldn't leave the windows open overnight as this would allow easy access into the building for thieves. In the same way, a weak password offers cyber attackers easy access to your corporate infrastructure, after which they can use these credentials to escalate permissions until they granted themselves administration privileges, at which point the risk of financial and reputational damage becomes truly serious!

Global broadcasts place incredible demands on infrastructure, which must offer the performance and resilience required to accommodate the anticipated spikes in viewership. Exponential-e has worked closely with a number of world leaders across the broadcasting and media sector, providing fully integrated solutions that ensure their connectivity is of the very highest quality, freeing their own teams to focus on the broadcast itself, safe in the knowledge that they can completely depend on their technological foundation, no matter how many viewers around the world tune in.

Over the course of the past year, the contact centre has been changed forever, with social distancing requirements meaning that familiar methods of face-to-face contact are now unavailable. In light of these shifts, social media, video and email contact are now regularly utilised as the primary channels for customer queries – a trend that we have seen on the rise for some years now. Between March and November 2020, we saw a significant update in the use of online channels, with 54% of organisations reporting an increase in email contact, 52% reporting an increase in social media, and 65% reporting an increase in the use of web chat.

Microsoft Teams has been in the ascension for some time now, rising exponentially in popularity throughout 2020, to the point it is now the default internal communications tool for many organisations, with the distributed workforce utilising it to effectively collaborate with colleagues on a day-to-day basis.

The finance sector is required to have one of the most sophisticated cyber security postures in the world, with bureaus, banks, finance companies and insurers working closely with their technology partners to ensure sensitive financial data is managed, stored and transferred, with a stringent range of international security standards that must be adhered to at all times. However, cyber criminals have demonstrated repeatedly that they are constantly working to breach even the most sophisticated security ecosystems, devising new ways to exploit both technological vulnerabilities and human error.

Now more than ever, effective collaboration and communication are the keys to success. Throughout 2020, we saw a widespread shift in how we interact with each other, both in and out of work, and how we stay connected to our colleagues and customers. Just consider the following:

With the flexible office model slowly but surely supplanting the traditional working environments in favour of dynamic co-working spaces for a number of years now, we have seen many organisations reconsider the way they think about commercial real estate.

The media sector is amongst the most dynamic and rapidly evolving in the UK, with audiences consuming higher volumes of content than ever before, across a tremendous range of platforms. This means its IT infrastructure must reflect that, ensuring data-intensive content can be made available on-demand, both online and offline. A secure, high-perform...

The past year has challenged the UK's education sector in ways that would previously have been inconceivable, with children learning from home the majority of the time since March.

The way the hospitality & leisure industry interacts with guests is constantly evolving, with cutting-edge technology offering new channels for everything from making bookings, to checking in, ordering additional services and entertainment, and billing. This type of multi-channel service delivery must be underpinned by a secure, scalable and co...