The switch to remote working tested many companies’ disaster recovery and business continuity provisions.
Despite the warnings in late December and early January, the requirement to work from home still came as something of a shock to many of us. It showed us the strengths and weaknesses of our contingency plans. We’ve seen inspirational stories coming from all kinds of people and sectors – but one of the most useful lessons I took came from the channel partners I work with on a daily basis.
I recently came across a book titled ‘Monkey Traps: Why Everybody Tries to Control Everything and How We Can Stop’. In short, the book focuses on the human nature to attempt to continuously seek control in scenarios in which we have none. I soon realised this analogy was very apt for the current global scenario we are facing in a business environment surrounded by uncertainty – at present we have limited control and instead of fighting this, we should seek to analyse and assess what areas of business we can currently control and impact positively.
Inevitably, those organisations who embrace change and uncertainty will ultimately evolve, overcome and succeed.
This leads me to ‘Adaptability’, which I believe is the key skill and ability organisations should be leaning on in order to not only survive but to thrive and grow.
Working in the RingCentral Channel team, I engage on a daily basis with an ecosystem of people selling technology hardware, solutions and services. These organisations range from single-person consultancies and storefront computer shops, to global organisations. It has been so refreshing and motivating to see our valued partners adapting and in turn, helping end-user customers adapt to the current climate.
Both partners and end users have now seen the critical importance in which risk management and contingency plans now play a vital role in the future of business strategy. No longer is it sufficient to have a rigid, inflexible on-premises, office-based IT and communications strategy – which is where cloud-based communication systems and collaboration tools such as RingCentral come into their own. RingCentral gives businesses the ability to be agile, to respond to unforeseen circumstances and most importantly allow mobile workforces to continue to communicate and be productive from anywhere, anytime and from any device.
Today more than ever, organisations need to focus on the changing workforce landscape. Working from home and remote employee enablement have never been so important. Not only that, employers and employees need an easy solution to adapt to the changing workplace demands, whilst maintaining customer communication and experience continuity. It is great to see this is now being recognised on a wider scale.
Inevitably, those organisations who embrace change and uncertainty will ultimately evolve, overcome and succeed. Click To Tweet
Our channel community is embracing ‘adaptability’, especially the future of the modern workplace and remote working/enablement. Over the past few months partners have continued to educate organisations on the power of UCaaS and CCaaS through virtual events, help public sector organisations in need with free RingCentral promotions and as a result help organisations globally become more robust and agile for future challenges.
A few weeks ago, part of Carlos Hidalgo’s advice for setting up a home office was “be willing to adjust”, based on the principle of constant change, learning and adaptation. Carlos went on to suggest people “make the change knowing that it may change again. The key is to relax and adapt.” So don’t panic. Work to your strengths, and welcome opportunities to embrace change.
From myself personally and from the global RingCentral channel team, thank you to our partners for embracing change, adapting and thriving.
Originally published May 11, 2020
