As the Financial Year 2020 comes to a close for many of us, I think all of us have had to rip up our business strategies, budgets and forecasts, moved from 12 month to 3 and 6 month planning cycles, something none of us would have predicted. Diaxion saw a significant portion of our work hibernate in March as clients moved to business continuity planning, work from home enablement or hibernating their own business units. We experienced a change in engagement and client intention about every 2 days during March / April. Whilst Diaxion had assisted some of our clients in the prior 6 months to redo their mobility and collaboration capabilities, refresh their Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and Disaster Recovery (DR), few were ready for the scale of the lockdown. We had to assist a client to increase their remote workforce capability 10 fold over the period of 4 days!
So, what is next most people ask me, will we return to the office? It is an interesting question and one that has many answers in our perception currently. But something that no one has a solid answer to, yet. We have seen mental strain from missing the social aspect of the office, we have seen interesting and ingenious ways for colleagues to support each other during the lockdown. In Diaxion we had a staff member present on the company video conference dressed as a dinosaur! People have tried the video conference all day only to work out that it is draining! Many of our clients in discussion have noted that productivity has decreased with all remote. What will be the new norm post lockdown? It will be interesting to find out.
Has cloud been a saviour for many during lockdown? Yes, especially for the end user computing and mobility perspectives. However, has it been without pain and will it stay? It is a very thought-provoking question, we have had stories and discussions with clients around Financial Operations (FinOps), cloud financial governance and how they can control or reduce their cloud cost. Companies that rushed to the cloud to enable lockdown have found that cost has blown out significantly and worse, security has been compromised as they did not have time to properly architect and apply continuous assurance practices to the cloud. Further companies have found that the promise to cut cost when revenue reduces in the cloud is only try partially and for some workloads. Lockdown for many companies saw not a reduction in revenue but a stoppage! Yet they were unable to turn off all or even a significant percentage of their cloud spend as they needed to maintain their back end and public presence, be it in a reduced manner. Couple this with forecasted severely reduced IT and business budgets next financial year, will Opex remain the favourite of business or will Capex reign? The answer of course, is yet unclear but regardless will be assured to be an answer of best fit per business unit and business service. What is known and certain is that continuous optimisation and assurance of spend and security will be required.
What else will change post lockdown? Sovereignty and provenance of supply chain and provider chain for services will have an ever increasing importance. This has been a theme across many of our engagements over the past year across Federal, State, Vendor and health clients. It is being brought to the forefront in many of our key clients immediately prior and during the COVID situation.
So, what has Diaxion been up to this past Financial Year?
What will the next 12 months bring? Let me know if you have a view, it is “interesting times” that is sure!
Wishing all our clients the best in these times and offering our support for a free chat or assistance if appropriate, reach out!
