The past year has challenged the UK's education sector in ways that would previously have been inconceivable, with children learning from home the majority of the time since March.

The UK's housing industry must contend with a number of singular challenges, as they ensure they remain efficient, scalable and profitable, while still keep the wellbeing of their tenants at the centre of everything.

Like many organisations throughout 2020, professional associations have been forced to dramatically reconsider how they interact with both current and potential members, in light of social distancing requirements and the move towards a distributed workforce.

At first glance, 2020 was the year organisations in both the public and private sectors wholeheartedly embraced Unified Communications (UC), in direct response to the challenges presented by COVID-19. However, while we certainly saw a surge in uptake...

A common perception of contact centres is that their callers - be they customers, patients or end users - only contact them if something is wrong. Nonetheless, throughout 2020, we have seen this underrated (but nonetheless essential) part o...

2020 has proven a challenging time for the global hospitality sector. As with virtually every industry impacted by COVID-19, the sector has been forced to completely re-evaluate the way it delivers its services, in order to comply with government regulations and - most importantly - guarantee the continued safety of both guests and staff.

No matter how sure you are that your network is secure, you may still be at risk of cyberattacks. It's no exaggeration Cybercriminals are constantly working to stay one step ahead of organisations and security professionals, exploiting any vulnerability they can in even the most sophisticated systems.

It's well-established that security is an essential part of all infrastructure. With data protection more of a concern for customers and end users than ever - particularly in light of regulations like the Cloud Act and GDPR - it's vital that organisations demonstrate a clear commitment to the security of their networks, Cloud applications and physical devices.

The move towards Hybrid Cloud infrastructures - with on-premise solutions systems connected to Public and Private Clouds to maximise the benefits of each solution - has been in progress for a number of years now. Indeed, in 2019 it was reported that 69% of organisations were already utilising some form of Hybrid Cloud solution1. Since then, the move towards a distributed workforce in response to COVID-19 has accelerated this process, with 82% of organisations reporting that they have accelerated their Cloud adoption strategies as a result of the pandemic2.

We see over and over again how COVID-19 is transforming the way we work and connect with each other. Employees across virtually every industry are now working effectively from home, even if such an arrangement would have been unthinkable at the start of this year. It's been extremely heartening to see the range of innovations that have been embraced in response to the crisis, but it's important not to forget the foundations of your IT infrastructure as you explore these solutions. For example, consider how you are backing up and storing the lifeblood of your organisation: your data.

The level of performance and resilience organisations demand from their networks has increased several-fold in the wake of COVID-19. The rapid transition to a fully distributed workforce has not only placed considerable demands on networks in terms of raw performance, but also the resilience needed to adapt to the unexpected with minimal disruption to data security, internal processes or the customer and user experience.While we have certainly seen some considerable successes in this area, there is still work to be done if this new way of working is able to provide companies with the agility, security and scalability they need to adapt and thrive going forward.

Over the past few months, video calling has exploded in both our personal and professional lives. We not only rely on regular calls to stay connected with our loved ones during this time of lockdown, but have come to depend on it as a primary mode of communication at work, in order to maintain the same standards of collaboration and interaction that we experienced in the office. Indeed, the number of people using video calling on a regular basis has increased by 87% over the past two years[1], and shows no sign of slowing down.