Technology: What's Changed Year Over Year?
An Interview with Pendello Solutions President, Mike Jackson
These past twelve months, we have seen a massive change in the way we work. These changes were forced upon us by a global pandemic. For the most part, most of us could continue doing business largely because of the drastic changes in technology. I was able to sit down with Pendello Solutions President, Mike Jackson, and get his take on the changes in technology year over year.
Q: As we all know, technology consistently changes and improves over time. How has this year been different?
Mike Jackson: The most significant difference in this year was the requirement and necessity to adapt to change. The global pandemic forced us to find a different way to work, and technology enabled us to work from anywhere at any time. All technology companies continuously evolve and create new software, although our need for this technology has never been so drastic before. This year was the difference. We had an instant need to figure out how to continue our business in a drastically different environment. Because of that, change and advancements in technology were being utilized out of necessity versus just improvements.
Q: What are the biggest changes that you have seen?
Mike Jackson: The need to be able to work from anywhere at any time. A nine-to-five schedule is a thing of the past. Everyone's schedules adapted this past year to make life work, and we recognized that many jobs could be done remotely and many times, whenever it could be worked in. A remote workplace with a flexible schedule has become more of the "norm" than the exception.
Going forward, we may be working "different" hours, and many offices will not be back in the office one-hundred percent. There will be a mixture of how we will need to utilize remote functionality to be able to work from anywhere and any time.
Remote work is not new but, as technology has evolved over there years, we have evolved from kind of a "clunky" ability to work from anywhere to where we are today. We now can work anywhere seamlessly and specifically with the advancements in the Microsoft 365 stack, which allowed us to work more efficiently from anywhere.
The second and equally most significant advancement I have seen is the improvement in video conferencing and collaboration tools. These applications indeed enabled companies to continue functioning and delivering business remotely. The advancements would span the workday from simply having face-to-face meetings to allowing for product demonstrations and even the engineering of new products. Through these applications, we continued business even though things looked very different. If we as companies had been dealt the same situation many years ago, we would have been stuck at a standstill where business as we knew it would have come to a complete halt.
As a final impact from this past year, we as a society took a massive step forward in digesting the changes in technology. People aren't always willing to advance technology. Many times, because we have "always" done something a certain way, and it worked, we take the perspective of "if it's not broke, don't fix it." This past year forced us to look at things differently. We looked at how we need to work moving forward and what do we need to change to continue progressing so that we are more prepared in the future.
A fantastic example of this is my mother. As a woman in her seventies, she would have never ordered her groceries online and had them delivered. This past year forced her to adapt. Now that she has found the efficiencies in this change, she has embraced this as a new part of her typical weekly calendar.
Although this year took us drastically out of our comfort zone with the many changes that we were forced to adapt to survive as businesses, many of these changes have now become part of our daily lives. We can't imagine going back to the way things were pre-pandemic. I hope that this perspective will continue to keep our eyes open and help us remember that sometimes change is for good. Acknowledging that we don't have to utilize all new changes in technology but just being open to those that might improve our lives is something we should all continuously do. We need to rely on the memories and struggles of this past year to keep a perspective on change and advancement. The changes in technology played a pivotal role in our survival throughout this past year.
We all hope that we won't have a similar situation again in our lifetimes, although we need to remember that change can be good and can most definitely help us advance. If 2020-21 has shown us anything, we need to adapt quickly, and technology is the most vital key to allowing us to do so. We must always keep an open mind to changes and advancements in technology as technology is essential in allowing us to be truly flexible in our society.
To learn more about the technological advancements that our Pendello Solutions team is seeing, reach out to us today. We are versed in the technologies that will help your business become more securely automated and efficient and are ready to help you advance to the next level.
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At Pendello Solutions, we turn technology hurdles into powerful assets. Our technology solutions fuel growth, productivity, and efficiency, through continuous innovation and strategic solutions, empowering your business beyond the imaginable. Contact us today to discover the Pendello Method.