In a year that reshaped the way businesses operate, Storm found itself navigating the same unprecedented challenges as its customers. As offices closed and entire workforces shifted overnight to remote setups, the realities of business continuity, technology readiness, and organisational resilience were tested like never before. Drawing on firsthand experience, Chief Operations Officer Nick Umney reflects on the pivotal lessons learned during this period of rapid change
INTRODUCTION
Like all ambitious organisations, Storm had big plans for 2020. Keen to continue our rapid growth trajectory, we were busy refurbishing offices, upgrading facilities and planning new service offerings. With bricks and mortar investments including a logistics centre, and roles that ranged from field‑based to desk‑focused, we have a lot in common with our customers.
So, when the pandemic hit, we lived their experience.
With openness as one of our core values, I thought I’d take a moment to share seven lessons we as a business have learned over the past six months.
PLAN FOR THE WORST
Our robust DR and Business Continuity plan was set up for the power and internet outages that can come with major building works — including a “snow day” capability for a third of our staff to work from home. What we weren’t planning for was the entire business having to work remotely.
Organisations now know they must prioritise modelling worst‑case scenarios and testing their readiness against them.
YOU CAN’T OUT‑WAIT RISK
Lots of companies waited to see if the need for remote working would pass, placing strategic projects on hold while focusing on tactical measures.
What we discovered is our need to roll out an effective End User Computing (EUC) solution became even more important now that users were not in the office — which meant that...
IT STRATEGY HAS TO BE FLUID
Accepting that you can’t wait lets you evolve your delivery methods by constantly asking “what next?”. And this evolution can happen quickly. Having provisioned laptops for our desktop workers, the “what next” was to quadruple our Remote Desktop Services capacity.
Next after that? Strengthening our Multi‑Factor Authentication.
Regardless of what the future brings, we can only gain from increasing our flexibility and security posture and by improving the employee experience.
NOTHING IS SET IN STONE
Securing business continuity under the circumstances we’ve experienced is what EUC solutions like VMware’s Workspace ONE is made for.
It means that how we want things to be and how we want to work doesn’t have to be set in stone.
This in turn frees us up to flex our business infrastructure to better support the needs of customers and users.
BELIEVE IN THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE
We’ve helped customers turn their business models on their heads — taking them from fixed offices and service desks to home‑working and full IT outsource. It’s proven that technology available today makes digital (and business) transformation possible within weeks.
FIND NEW WAYS TO LISTEN
Users requiring support would normally phone our service desk to raise a ticket — something that became impractical as we went from 3 locations to more than 50.
So, we opened up a Teams channel which — despite being outside of traditional ITIL practices — accelerated our ability to prioritise and understand what we could solve and what was beyond our control.
EUC IS CRITICAL TO SUCCESS
If I were to frame what’s happened in terms of the Kubler‑Ross Change Model, I’d say most companies are at the ‘Integration’ stage — accepting that these changes signal a long‑term shift.
Central to making this shift successful is adopting an appropriate EUC platform that allows employees to work effectively and securely from any location or device with the minimum of technology overhead.
APPLYING THE LESSONS LEARNED
As part of our Innovation Council approach, we’re speaking with customers about how to apply the changes they’ve made to other commitments such as lowering carbon emissions.
We’re also holding conversations on how the lessons learned over the past six months can help us all do better, be better and do more with what we’ve got.
THE BUSINESS CONTINUITY CONVERSATION
From where we are today, I anticipate EUC leaping up the list as an enabler for true business continuity, which is why Storm has created the following knowledge‑sharing opportunities:
- 1:1 guidance — Got a question on how to optimise your existing environment? We’ll share our experience with you in a no‑obligation call.
- Innovation Councils — We’ll join your team in an advisory manner for rational conversations about what tech you need to get the job done.
- VMware EUC webinars — We’ll connect you with the latest VMware thinking and help you understand how to apply it to your business challenges.
