Summer is in full force here in Southern California. It’s been a while since we’ve had a proper vacation season, so I hope everyone plans to have some fun with RV trips, airline travel, waterpark play, golf outings, ball games, and other adventures.
With the return of our favorite summer past times, it feels like we’re back to normal.
Supply Chain Bottlenecks Affect IT Projects
Unfortunately, the return to business “normal” is another story. For us at Accent, scheduling IT advancement projects for our clients is challenging because we can’t get all the computer and network components we need due to global supply chain issues. Sometimes the equipment clients need to order has lead times of up to one year out from the manufacturers.
The situation we find ourselves in is that clients want the work done -- and we have the staff resources to do it -- but the products are just unavailable.
More Demand for IT Partnerships
On the positive side, we’re seeing an influx of business leaders who want to talk with us about helping them advance their IT systems and shore up security.
These executives are seeing signs that it’s time to do something different. They recognize that in the current business environment, the IT function of their business has never been more difficult to perform.
What’s happened is that the increasing complexity of technology has changed the IT game.
These days you have to have experts on staff in order to fully utilize technologies that are basically new. This makes it difficult for internal IT teams at small to medium-sized businesses to keep up. Nobody knows everything!
Onsite IT Support Still a Necessity
Something else is at play in the business environment, and it’s a trend that seems to have accelerated over the last two months.
During the pandemic, many employees moved away from their employers, often to other states, for any number of reasons. As businesses return to normal, they need at least part of the IT function to be able to come to the physical office, even if that office is someone’s home!
A large percentage of the job of providing IT support can be done remotely, but not everything. For instance, if you’re a software developer, you will never need to go to “a site.” Instead, software is transferred from the developer to the users’ system, and off you go using the new application.
In IT support, however, you may sometimes need to be at the deskside to help your users or install a physical device. So many companies want the IT function of their business to be located in the area the business is headquartered, or they’re hiring IT service companies to fill the service gaps.
I believe that remote work is here to stay for many functions. However, our clients and prospects are requiring services to be at the site when necessary.
As we move to whatever the new normal will be, it is clear that businesses will adapt by having certain functions available for onsite, and others will be perfectly fine remote.
It is very interesting to watch how the whole business climate adjusts!
Have a great July,
Marty
