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Read or download the latest issue of Business Info Magazine 146 online now

Read issue 146 online here or download

IN THIS ISSUE

What’s New: A selection of the best new products for home and office

Collaboration: The importance of good audio quality for hybrid working

Interview: Why training is the best form of defence against cyber-attacks

Property: How coronavirus has affected the commercial property market

Workplace: Why local workspaces could be the key to the future of work

Management: Fusion teams: what are they are why do they matter?

Risk Management: A problem shared is a problem halved

DigitalTransformation How to create an adaptable and flexible working culture

I couldn’t do my job without…Dawn George highlights the five things she couldn’t do her job without

Review: Is the Surface Duo the shape of smartphones to come?

Sustainability: even reasons to install an EV charge point on your premises

Software:  How low code is making app development easy for small businesses

App Update: A round-up of interesting new apps

Offices: How to ensure a swift and safe return to the office

Lighting: The role of UV light in infection control

End User Computing: How IGEL is profiting from rising demand for cloud workspaces

Data Security: Don’t let human error put your data at risk

The month in numbers The world of work in numbers

“Comment ”

With June 21 fast approaching, businesses up and down the country are looking forward to the lifting of all coronavirus restrictions – or perhaps just keeping their fingers crossed that there won’t be another delay. The expected economic boom is incentive enough, but an added benefit for business owners and managers is clarity over what can and can’t be done. After months of making do and twisting and turning to accommodate changing rules, businesses will at last be free to address the needs of their customers in the best, most direct way.

Many will be dusting down projects that might have been on hold for a year or more. At Kingswood Media, we are eagerly anticipating the resumption of live events like our Technology Live exhibition, now scheduled for September 28.

Other will be reassessing how their business is run. With hybrid working in the ascendancy – or should that be tribrid working, as Bludesk suggests on page 12 – do you need to devise a new
IT strategy? When we spoke to IGEL UK Chief Marketing Officer Simon Townsend for our end user computing feature on page 30 he made the interesting point that in the past organisations would have had separate strategies for mobile and enterprise IT, but with hybrid working these were now converging, creating the need for a unified strategy, most likely built around cloud workspaces.

Then, there is the whole question of what changing working practices mean for the office. With employees working from home two or three days a week, do you need so much office space?
And what should the purpose of that space be? Will head offices need to be more social, welcoming environments, with less marble and more mindfulness? Should enterprises give employees the option to work in smaller hubs in the commuter belt rather than trekking into city centre HQs? On page 11, Tony Lorenz warns that enterprises’ responses to these questions could put the squeeze on smaller offices normally taken up by SMEs. On a more positive note, he points out that with a possible weakening of overall demand for office space, landlords themselves will need to be more accommodating of tenants’ demands. This could mean offering anything from shorter, more flexible leases to more hotel- like workspaces replete with Covid safety features and luxury meeting rooms.

Whatever the future holds, there will no doubt be plenty of opportunities for the most agile to take take advantage of. In today’s world that probably means those that have advanced furthest with their digital transformation.

James Goulding, Editor, jamesg@binfo.co.uk

 

Business Info Magazine & Site is Published by Kingswood Media 2022