The start-up and small-medium enterprise (SME) communities, currently accounting for up to 99.9% of the business population and approximately half of the turnover in the UK private sector, have undoubtedly witnessed prodigious changes over the past 2 years. Global lockdowns in 2020 saw 770,000 start-ups created in the UK, many of which began directly from homes during lockdown; similar numbers are now expected in 2021 largely thanks to the rise in hybrid and remote working.
While growth in this community is welcome, these changes have unveiled an abundance of digital difficulties businesses have experienced, adapting in this environment. Going forward, start-ups and SMEs need to be hyperaware of their digital environment if they hope to successfully evolve in parallel and adopt new technologies accordingly.
After the pandemic struck, start-ups, typically reliant on in-person team dynamics and more traditional marketing methods with little-to-no investment in digital technologies, were not equipped with the frameworks and infrastructure needed to successfully overcome the challenges ahead. When the time came for businesses to step into the world of hybrid working, the only all-encompassing solution to their need to adapt and rapidly was technology.
The first, and perhaps most common step into the hybrid model was the adoption of cloud infrastructure. Not only did this help hugely when businesses needed to quickly shift their data into an online and accessible platform, it also ensured business continuity and expedited their digital transformation, all while lowering infrastructure and storage costs.
Gartner has predicted that by 2024, the proportion of IT spending in cloud will be 14.2% of the total global enterprise IT spending, up from 9.1% in 2020. Even during the pandemic, a survey by McKinsey found that there was 24-fold increase in the speed of migrating assets to the cloud, showcasing that cloud was one of the key steps businesses needed to take in order to adapt to the fluctuating digital environment.
Now, as the world embarks upon an age of hybrid working, businesses will continue to rely heavily on these IT infrastructures and frameworks – without question, the future of work is digital. It was recently found that internet usage in the UK increased by 78% between March 2020 and March 2021, and this demand is set to continue as many businesses and start-ups look to innovate their ways of working.
Examples of this include the relocation of workforces, outsourcing, and transformed IT infrastructure, all in a bid to increase the quality of their services and build their international presence.
Pre-Covid, it was less common for start-ups to outsource and operate in and from different countries, often due to limits on staff and financial constraints. However, PA Consulting recently found that 2 thirds of firms in the UK now plan to outsource their IT services within the next 2 years.
This, alongside the continued evolution of IT infrastructure, will help start-ups to focus more efficiently on their core business activities, as well as having better control of their costs and increased reach, thus, creating a greater competitive advantage. In this new reality, focusing on employee wellness and experience is also hugely significant. Without face-to-face, in-person interactions, the relationship between businesses and their employees is one that can fall lower on the list of priorities, which can have detrimental impacts.
Transitioning to new hybrid work culture is difficult and businesses must acknowledge and understand this by implementing hyper care and wellbeing monitoring procedures that can reach employees across the world.
As we look away from the pandemic and into the future, IT infrastructures will continue to develop. These advances are sure to have impacts on the hybrid models start-ups and small businesses will have constructed. When it comes to hybrid working, emerging technologies such as VR & AR, 5G adoption, machine learning and IoT are quickly developing and present huge opportunities.
They have the power to enhance capacity, increase efficiency, all whilst reducing maintenance and operating costs – ultimately going that step further in enabling people and processes with technology.
Start-ups are usually either disrupting existing large businesses by offering better services quickly and at more affordable rates, or developing a brand new service that did not exist previously. In both cases, once they have a successful offering in the market, they need to quickly scale the service to meet the demand and continue to innovate to stay on top of the curve.
This is where they need to hire and retain the talent that brings required niche skills to innovate and experienced talent who can help them to scale the business. Agile workplace services technology can help start-ups to quickly onboard and engage the talent needed for their growth.
With the SME community accounting for approximately half of the turnover in the UK, organisations need to ensure they’ve modernised their underlying infrastructure to adapt to these digital advances as soon as they can. It is integral for continued and sustainable business growth that organisations keep up with the evolving technologies available to them. This will provide a much-needed structure for both business growth as well as prove to be a source of support for the economy.
Ultimately, organisations must recognise technology as the great enabler of success and business growth. If start-ups and small businesses can leverage the aftermath of the pandemic as a strategic opportunity, it will help them to evolve alongside the technology they are employing and keep this impressive momentum going. In a hybrid and post-pandemic environment, making sure that small companies are optimising their IT costs and building infrastructure that’s resilient and available to customers through digital adoption are a few things to keep front of mind.
