It’s that time of year, when Business Link Magazine invites the region’s business leaders to offer up their predictions for the year ahead.
It has become something of a tradition, given that we’ve been doing this now for over 30 years.
Here we speak to Steve Heald, Managing Director of Yappl, the business-facing arm of A1 Comms.
We are all hailing the arrival of a vaccine to Covid-19 but nobody believes that business will ever look the same again.
However, it gives me no joy to predict that some companies will have major data breaches because they see home-working as a panacea but haven’t thought through the security threats.
Almost all businesses have secure offices and some form of IT network security on their main premises along with decent internet connectivity and phone systems.
But they need to make sure this is replicated in the homes of their teams and not just leave security to chance.
Meanwhile, companies will need to make sure home-workers are not frustrated by slow speeds.
In my own business, I have just seen one of my employee’s performance revolutionised by upgrading her slow ADSL broadband to a new fibre-to-the-premise solution with a ten-fold speed jump on file uploads.
Next year, will see a widening of mobile 5G coverage along with the coming huge investments in full-fibre access as part of the Government’s “better broadband.”
That will come even more to the fore in Derby and Nottingham where CityFibre is bringing superfast connectivity to businesses and homes.
Companies which seize this opportunity will be on the front foot as we emerge from the Covid crisis.