Transform and automate business with Dicker Data, Dell Technologies and Microsoft

COVID-19 has created an era of unprecedented change for businesses across all sectors, transforming traditional ways of operating. As we navigate to a post-pandemic environment, the mandate for business continuity revolves around the ability to mobilise and sustain a remote work model on demand and reengineering strategies for growth, while prioritising the safety of employees, communities and customers.

The surge in demand for remote working solutions has rapidly accelerated digital transformation. With this several challenges have arisen, from managing multiple devices across servers and fragmented workforces to the increased risk around security, data governance and compliance. Solutions from Microsoft like Autopilot, and Dell Technologies’ OpenManage and SupportAssist can address the challenges of the future by enabling business to seamlessly adapt.

Lana Tran, Group Product Manager at Dicker Data says, “Digital transformation is no longer a goal for some time in the future but a requirement for business resilience and success now. Businesses of all sizes have required to adapt and adopt new solutions to evolve and enhance systems to create connected workplaces for long-term success.”

Identifying new challenges and the shift in IT priorities

The remote work movement has catapulted tech initiatives making them a priority for most. With modernisation in mind, businesses are turning to real-time data to make smarter, faster and future-proof decisions.

A survey from App Dynamics indicates the rate of digital transformation during the pandemic has created new IT risks and 95 percent of businesses have shifted their tech priorities, placing greater emphasis on cybersecurity, compliance, automation, integrated solutions, AI and enhancing digital customer experience and retention.

While 87 percent of IT professionals believe the pandemic was a wake-up call for business transformation, 29 percent of managed service providers (MSPs) have experienced accounts receivable increases as end-users are failing to meet contract and payment deadlines.

The recent Dicker Data webinar on preparing for post-COVID-19 with Mark Iles, Executive Consultant and Industry Analyst, Tech Research Asia revealed the immediate challenges impacting Australian partners revolve around unpredictable revenue, payment issues, low profitability, operational changes, cashflow pressures and workforce rebalancing.

Navigating the post-pandemic landscape has highlighted business models are becoming outdated and new operational environments have intensified the focus on digital. There is the opportunity however, for pressured IT departments to tap into new areas and concentrate priorities on innovative, fast and flexible solutions that support remote workers and streamlined processes.

Maximising opportunities and enabling digital success

A recent report by KPMG says, as “Eighty percent of revenue growth is tied to digital offerings and operations over the next three years, IT leaders should continue transforming their operating models and investing in key enablers, like integrated cloud, agile, automation, AI, blockchain and advanced data and analytics.”

The rapid move to remote work has revealed several challenges including setting up productive, secure, sustainable workstations and ensuring IT meets infrastructure growth demands. The workforce is evolving, and smart tech solutions are key enables to agile and virtual business continuity.

Traditionally, IT departments spend a lot of time, resources and infrastructure, deploying, customising, managing and retiring devices. The process is onerous and inefficient for managers.

Windows Autopilot is a collection of technologies used to streamline, set up and pre-configure your team’s devices, getting them ready for productive and immediate use. Autopilot is designed to assist IT departments simplify and reduce overall costs for all parts of the Windows devices lifecycle. This saves time for IT managers and the amount of infrastructure required, while ensuring ease of use for end users.

 Adopting tech solutions to enhance user experience

Technology and automation have reshaped the way businesses operate, employees work, and humans interact.

Dell’s OpenManage Enterprise is a secure and intuitive infrastructure management console designed to offer IT managers robust, scalable, unified tool with automation capabilities. This helps IT professionals scale service lifecycle management and boost data centre productivity. This enables 99.9 percent faster compliance checking and firmware updates, configuration drift detection and migration in 20 seconds and reconfiguration capabilities in 51 seconds.

Additionally, IT departments can maximise efficiency with the One-to-Many management of up to 8,000 devices, using a single tool and unified technology servers, automatically deploying devices with a pre-defined policy and template in just minutes.

Market research has identified 75 percent of business downtime is caused by manual and disconnected IT processes. Capitalising on existing solutions like Dell’s SupportAssist will eliminate manual processes for IT managers and reduce tech issues for employees with automated identification, predictive issue detection and proactive diagnoses of tech problems. This allows users to reimburse time back to the business and focus on key projects, while having a solid system to mitigate and manage risk of issues.

To learn about how smart technology solutions can enable businesses and partners to adapt to the new normal, watch our Dicker Data webinar on demand.