New workstyles for 2021

Sephora signage during the circuit breaker
(lockdown) in Singapore in 2020. Lockdowns around
the world forced businesses to support
work-from-home arrangements at short notice
during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The global shift to remote working in 2020 may have been an inevitable consequence of a pandemic, but it ended up accelerating digital transformation for many businesses.

Ho Chye Soon, Singapore Country Manager, Nutanix, pointed out that the CIO's role is validated as digital transformation becomes a top priority for the C-suite.

"Previously, digitisation was the priority of the CIO but not given then same level of attention by the CEO or the rest of the C-suite. This changed rapidly with the onset of the pandemic when finally, the enabling power of digital transformation was recognised across the business. It will remain a top priority throughout 2021, when having the right level of digital ability will continue to be vital for business agility and survival," he noted.

"As a result, the CIO will become more prominent in business decisioning and leadership, with their tech investments having been validated in a big way. The shift of IT from a cost centre to a key business driver will accelerate. Every business is now a technology business, even if they don’t realise it yet.”

"In 2021, employees and customers are virtual. There’s now a premium on digital transformation as the vehicle for driving employee productivity and customer experience," observed Zakir Ahmed, Senior VP and GM, Asia Pacific & Japan at Kofax.

"If 2020 has taught enterprises anything, it’s that remote working on a company-wide scale is possible. With people at the centre of everything, 2021 now offers an opportunity for businesses to chart a new way forward and ask how they can deliver work to their people," added Sean Duca, VP and Regional Chief Security Officer, Asia Pacific & Japan, Palo Alto Networks.

In 2021, how we work and what enables our new workstyles will evolve as new solutions come online and businesses come to terms with the need to move from makeshift infrastructure to something more permanent. Industry observers agree that technology is essential:

Dinesh Malkani, Founder and CEO, Smarten Spaces said, "Hybrid work has fast become the norm. In 2021, it is expected that 25% of seats in offices will be made redundant, with occupancy over time decreasing to 10%–50% (down from 70% in pre-COVID days). 

"Moving forward, people will continue to focus on what matters most in their work life: a desire for spaces that create a sense of community and impact. CIOs will be challenged to work cross-functionally to deliver tomorrow’s offices that are great places for collaboration and focused teamwork, while managing costs."

Source: Smarten Spaces. Malkani. 

According to Malkani, organisations will move from fixed to flexible workspaces, supported by technology such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. "The push to enhance employee experience and drive efficiency in the new normal will lead business leaders to leverage such technologies for both agility and human touch experience, simplifying workflow and increasing collaboration," he said.

"Operational resiliency will be top priority for businesses, and technology is the answer to this need."

"2020 forced many businesses to accelerate their digital transformation and experiment with many different technologies as more of their employees worked from home. Despite vaccines becoming available, most consumer studies show that people will prefer to travel near home and continue working remotely. Everise’s recent employee survey found that 95% of our people prefer some blend of remote work, with 55% preferring to work at home completely," added Vic Sithasanan, Chief Growth Officer, Everise DX.

"2021 will see the maturing of technologies that enable people to not only work from home, but emerge from 2021 work securely and happily from home."

Darren Murph, Head of Remote, GitLab agreed, saying, "In 2020, tens of millions of people globally experienced a seismic shift in work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with many companies emerging as hybrid-remote companies. We expect remote work to continue democratising the conversation on workplace flexibility, benefiting those who need it most and would be least comfortable asking for it.

"In 2021, we will see greater momentum from the significant shift away from the office mentality. Remote will no longer be considered the future of work - it’s the future of living. The average digital worker will reconsider where they want to live and how to optimise their work-life integration due to greater autonomy and flexibility. 

"Remote will become the new Tier-1 job filter. The best talent won't apply if workplace flexibility is not supported up-front and companies slow to adapt will miss out on talent they see as 'job hoppers'. Second and third-order effects will begin to take shape as cities become more livable due to reduced strain, highway traffic diminishes, and rural depopulation begins to slowly reverse."

"In 2021 we expect to see more organisations adopting the new hybrid work model – a combination of working remotely and in a traditional office setting – with the productivity it brings, is a new way forward," said Samir Sayed, MD, ASEAN & Korea, Poly.

"At the same time, organisations are realising that consumer grade gear just isn’t cutting it and will look to invest more in enterprise-grade tools like headsets and high-definition videoconferencing as part of their long-term investments in technology."

"2021 is the game-changing year with respect to hybrid work models, with enterprises relying on technology to build these models. There will be an increased dependence on technology that is reliable, high performing, and secure to ensure easy access to data. Most of them are revamping their existing IT infrastructures and are considering new innovative solutions to empower employees to be both flexible and efficient," said Sanjay Rohatgi, Senior VP and GM for Asia Pacific at NetApp.

"In 2021, we see businesses looking beyond supporting large groups of remote workers to customise innovative solutions and realise larger goals with the help of technology – be it enhancing customer experience or driving more sales."

"It is evident that remote working, or work from anywhere, has been made possible with technology – spanning from cloud adoption, IT collaboration tools to deploying optimised data protection solutions at the edge and sending backup data directly to the cloud or the data centre for centralised management," agreed Andy Ng, VP and MD, Asia South Region, Veritas Technologies.

"Moving into 2021 and beyond, 5G will definitely drive the proliferation of edge computing, enabling businesses to gain access to data, services and insights that were previously impossible. This move to the edge, coupled with the ongoing debate on the push and pull of remote working, will create additional data management challenges as well as new demands, with the need to manage more data with more endpoint devices residing in different locations."

Sayed said that enterprise-grade headsets with noise-blocking technology built into the microphone, noise-cancelling headsets and auto-framing webcams are well on their way to becoming necessities, as the interaction "becomes very real and high quality". Other technologies to pay attention to include contactless functionality using proximity sensors, for example, which automatically start scheduled meetings as people walk into the room, or even voice commands to schedule, join, and end meetings.

Some of the considerations industry observers have highlighted for 2021 include:

Uneven timelines

“As countries around the region and the world begin to look beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ll start to see a slow and staggered return to physical workspaces. But it will be an uneven recovery. Across the APJ region and further afield, our countries and economies are so interconnected. Even if one country’s recovery is going well, until the major international players return to an even keel, the global uncertainty will continue," said Ho from Nutanix.

"Naturally, this will create a scattered return to growth. To deal with this, organisations will need the agility to shift their strategies and spending on a quarter-by-quarter basis to ensure they can react to the macro situation. The appetite for traditional, large capitalised IT spend will be replaced with just-in-time agility.

"A traditional approach to technology doesn’t allow this agility. Instead, enterprises and governments will look to subscription models over longer-term contracts or lock-ins, to ensure they have the ability to shift and innovate in the face of uncertainty. A pay-as-you-grow model which encourages 'fail fast' strategies will balance the imperatives to innovate with the need to reduce exposure.”

Change of mindset

"As we move into a hybrid workplace, organisations must consider factors conducive to productivity. According to the Dell Technologies Remote Work Readiness Index, 46% of surveyed employees in Asia Pacific & Japan feel that their employers are fully supportive of long-term remote work. When it comes to technology resources, 50% feel that their employer is not doing enough to support effective remote working," said Eric Goh, VP & MD, Singapore, Dell Technologies.

"Moving into 2021, organisations must continue to embrace innovation, allow it to happen anywhere and give people the tools they need and prioritise flexibility, as a permanent fixture where jobs allow. Business leaders need to shift their mindsets regarding the traditional construct of work – confined by place and time – and instead orientate work around outcomes. Investing in emerging technologies will be the key to business resilience going forward."

New technologies

Technology that helps people work better remotely will be all the rage in 2021. David Hughes, founder of Silver Peak and Senior VP of the WAN business at Aruba, said the underlying infrastructure for connectivity could evolve. "To support work-from-home, enterprises will extend their SD-WAN fabrics to the home, bonding 5G and consumer broadband services to deliver the highest quality of experience for latency-sensitive voice and video applications and significantly improving network and application availability and resiliency," he predicted. SD-WAN stands for software-defined wide-area network.

NetApp's Rohatgi named end-user computing (EUC) and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) as solutions to watch as they "enable teams to better manage shared storage resources across cloud vendors and regions", but there are others to invest in as well.

"Now, more than ever, it is imperative for organisations to consider solutions on how to keep their employees productive. New forms of collaborative work solutions and virtual workplaces will emerge in the coming year (2021) as organisations seek to navigate an unprecedented new normal," Jean-Philippe Malé, CEO of BidFX concurred.

"I anticipate that cloud adoption will continue to advance at pace and there could be greater adoption of solutions such as desktop-as-a-service (DaaS). DaaS ensures that data does not leave the corporate network while also allowing employees to work effectively anywhere and be onboarded quickly without having to ship laptops from place to place," agreed Ian Hall, Manager, Client Success, APAC, at Synopsys Software Integrity Group.

Duca from Palo Alto Networks had a similar outlook. "With the increased adoption of cloud tools, we could see a reduction in the need for pricier devices with more computing power as virtualised desktops become an increasingly popular solution," he said.

"Businesses could instead provide employees with simpler, connected devices that enable employees to access the programs and resources they need online, delivering the work to them directly – and in turn, protecting the company’s crown jewels.

"This radical redesign of the way employees connect does away with the cybersecurity complications associated with BYOD – or, as it has become the norm, bring your own computer (BYOC) policies – while enforcing the segmentation of networks more efficiently and effectively."

Such implementations will require security to be delivered via the edge, Duca said, naming secure access service edge (SASE) as likely to become the new cybersecurity norm because of the flexibility, simplicity and the visibility it offers.

"Businesses are recalibrating their digital transformation strategy to support their remote workforce. Based on research we conducted (in 2020), the top business priorities for Southeast Asia and the Australia and New Zealand organisations are improving ICT and security resilience for business continuity purposes. 

Source: Telstra. Bates.

"They are investing in unified communications (UC) and collaboration tools, including videoconferencing for remote working, accelerating cloud adoption, and looking at role-based ICT solutions that incorporate strong automation and digital tooling," said Todd Bates, Regional Lead South Asia at Telstra.

"We expect investments in the area to continue, and that it will manifest in a phased approach of IT strategy. In the short term, companies will procure more UC software licensing; the medium term will focus on digital tooling and information technology infrastructure library (ITIL)-aligned processes; and the long-term focus will be to get the right balance of traditional and digital channels.

"In addition, networks underpin technology – they will need to be software-defined, cloud-ready and flexible to connect mobile workers. Video will be the new form of collaboration, as organisations increase their reliance on videoconferencing to replace face-to-face meetings post-COVID-19 recovery."

Software to the fore

The impact of a hybrid workforce on technology development, design and deployment will be addressed via software, predicted Keysight. "A hybrid workforce, social distancing and other dilutions of historical work efforts will accelerate software enablement for product design and development," said Keysight executives.

Specifically:

- Software-led processes will play an enormous role in 2021. Product design, R&D, testing, manufacturing/production and diagnostic troubleshooting will be accomplished remotely through software-led solutions.

- Companies will rely on software to support a remote workforce by leveraging the cloud and providing advanced computation abilities.

Nurturing talent

“As technologies and workplaces continue to evolve, it is extremely important for businesses to engage in ongoing learning and upskilling for their employees. More and more chief HR officers are stating that online learning can be as effective as in-person learning, according to a report by the Center for Creative Leadership and ADP. Believing otherwise is one of the top misconceptions hindering the development of future-ready leaders," said ADP’s President, Asia Pacific, Peter Hadley.

"Best-practice online learning should be personalised to different learning styles. Additionally, there must be measurable outcomes to gauge efficacy. To maintain accountability, leaders must also apply the concepts taught, ensuring that all levels of the organisation benefit.”

Sithasanan of Everise suggested that augmented reality (AR) could become mainstream. "As local travel increases and work-from-anywhere becomes more common-place, AR could become an amazing tool to provide almost an extra sensory ability for users to work and stay connected with colleagues," he said.

"AR also has a strong application in training and education. For example, before the pandemic Everise had product labs that made training agents on complex hardware devices relatively simple. With agents now scattered across the globe, AR provides a creative approach to delivering ongoing, immersive virtual training."

"Organisations mastering the digital landscape – from collaboration tools (Zoom, MS Teams, etc.) to automation tools (intelligent automation, financial process automation and enterprise output management) are thriving. This trend will accelerate in 2021 and will continue even after offices open up again," concluded Kofax's Ahmed.