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Brexit Committee News Update – October 2020 Update

Following XMA’s most recent Brexit meeting, we are delighted to submit an update to our customers and suppliers regarding our plans for Brexit. Our preparations are based on the assumption that there will be no European Free Trade Agreement in place by 1 January 2021.

Potential Delays

Whilst it is widely recognised that there will be delays at Channel ports and those heading to Ireland, XMA is working with our major vendors and distributors to mitigate such delays creating new routes of delivery. Whilst this will only be partially successful, together with XMA’s increased warehouse capacity and planning with each supplier – we trust that we can avoid any material delays. Consultation with customers have shown them to be more sanguine about these hold-ups which are unlikely to affect the normal flow of business materially.
Customers with orders due around 31st December should engage with your XMA account manager asap to ensure these can be managed and prioritised to ensure they delivered prior to cut-off.

Tariffs

Our vendors are improving their ability to provide accurate codes and countries of origin. 99% of XMA products now have commodity codes stored in our product database (or the UNSPC code which is a close approximation) and have been looked up on both the UK General Tariff and the EU Common External Tariff with almost all currently displaying no tariff. Some 3D printing products are affected.
These tariffs could change in the months ahead, and we will keep customers informed of any tariff introductions as soon as we can. Any tariffs incurred will be recharged to the customer.

Warehousing

XMA has progressed its discussions and application to have a bonded warehouse within the Andover facility. These preparations are continuing and our systems are being updated. This will allow goods to remain in Europe with the confines of our UK facilities and effectively be imported into the UK at point of order by UK customers whilst allowing European customers/orders to be transacted speedily.

Ireland

XMA can supply into Ireland through our parent company and main distribution partner Westcoast and we are able to utilise Westcoast Ireland’s own distribution agreements to purchase goods direct from our main vendors and then store in Westcoast’s Ireland’s Tallaght warehouse. This may help with large projects, run-rate skus and CTO/bespoke product orders. Please contact us for further details.

International Shipping

XMA are already experts in shipping to the EU – Ireland or Mainland Europe – and are working with a number of freight forwarders to provide services for all UK customers concerned about shipping internationally. Paperwork, tariffs, VAT deferment, regulations can all be handled by XMA’s specialist partners. The EU will be implementing full border formalities on 1 Jan 2021(the UK are phasing them in over 6 months) which means that customers need to be ready.

We will be announcing our standard processes shortly allowing any customer to engage our skills and services. However, if you want a more strategic conversation on how XMA can handle all such shipments on your behalf, engage with your account manager and our team will be in touch.

Other Changes

There are a number of other changes – e.g. the new UKCA safety mark replacing the EU’s CE mark or the recognition of professional qualifications and intellectual property. These internal Westcoast Group matters are being assessed and customers are advised to examine any areas that may be affected.

Two good external sources of information providing a checklist of areas to examine are:

The British Chambers of Commerce: https://www.britishchambers.org.uk/media/get/Business Brexit Checklist.pdf 

EY – 100 Days To Go Readiness Guide: https://www.ey.com/en_uk/ey-brexit/brexit-readiness-guide-for-business-with-100-days-to-go 

All questions or feedback are welcome by email: approvals@xma.co.uk

On the 17th September 2020, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) issued an alert to Universities and the education sector after seeing a rapid rise in cyber-attacks throughout August. In the run up to student registration which involves new students arriving on campus and moving into halls, the goal of the cyber-attacks is to cause maximum disruption financially and to reputation.

The NCSC stated that a recent spike in ransomware attacks specifically aimed at Schools, Colleges and Universities student intakes has led to issuing this alert.

“The NCSC dealt with several ransomware attacks against education establishments in August, which caused varying levels of disruption, depending on the level of security establishments had in place.”

A ransomware attack will usually involve the cyber criminals targeting your most valuable data, encrypting the data (it has been known for whole virtual servers to be encrypted), and holding your data hostage while they attempt to extort money or information.

So, what can you do?

As an industry, we have moved on from treating ‘security’ as a single item or product. We must continue to critically examine our security capabilities end to end – all the way through to the human being at the keyboard. We must evaluate each component of our technology services:

Internet Edge
Perimeter
Campus LAN
Datacentre services – Production Data
Datacentre services – Backup, Recovery
Processes – Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity and Breach Response
Identity
End-User Device
Human Behaviour

What can you do today?

There are many small tasks that you can do today that will start ensuring you reduce the attack space and minimise risk:

• Patching of all devices, end-user devices, network devices, servers, host servers.
• Review all servers running RDP protocols.
• Review all AD accounts with privileges, should the privileges be granted, are there accounts that are old, unused or unknown.
• Review ANY local accounts on servers.
• Review firewall rules and disable old and unknown rules.
• Check your backups, test the backups and check the permissions/accessibility of the backup data and any accounts with access to the backup.

Consider releasing staff and student communications through email, social media and electronic message boards / VLE as a reminder to:

• Alert IT Support to all suspicious emails. If in doubt – get it checked out.
• Do not download any software not explicitly requested from a known source.
• Recommendation for BYOD students to download an approved AV/AM tool.

Andrew Nickson, Solution Architect at XMA specialising in Hyper-converged infrastructure and back up technology had this advice:

“To reduce the impact of a successful attack, in my experience you need to implement a range of strategies. Backing up regularly, use the same categories as your main production, for instance critical applications need backing up more regularly than appliances that don’t change from day to day. Restore, this is often forgotten if you have been running your backups for a year do you know if you can recover from a day, week month ago? Test your backups does the application still work? Document the steps required to remediate, what steps were required to get the application to run correctly.

To provide a resilient backup solution don’t just rely on a single location replicate it to another site creating a secondary copy with different retention policies and if possible to a third the cloud is really an excellent location for long term archives and backups.
Recovery from cyber-attacks and ransomware is time consuming and fraught with obstacles. Once having been attacked have your backups been compromised? To mitigate these potential attacks always keep an offline copy, only expose the backup location to your live systems when absolutely necessary and rotate the backup location if possible, you will always have a backup to go to. Use immutable file systems such a S3 object storage, WORM (Write Once Read Many) drives, Tape will provide a complete air gap between your live data and your backups for a retro solution.

Utilising an air gap will provide protection you can utilise pre and post scripts to enable ports on the firewalls or enable NICs on the servers or backup locations. The cloud can provide an additional physical separation from your live environment and your backup data.
We are always aware that keeping the number of users with access to your live data to a minimum, is the first line of defence, and the same is true about backup keep your systems patched perform an audit of your environment regularly not just the operating systems but appliances and switches as well, as all have had security breaches in the past. Remove any unauthorised devices from the network.”

With such a focus on the need to deliver digital services and online lectures and content in these evolving times, we spoke to Craig Bramley – Lead Educational Technologist for Citrix:

“The consequences can range from losing student coursework, to research and IP data theft, large scale incident investigations, financial and reputational damage. So, it’s really important, probably more important now than ever to place security in the top of an institution’s priorities – if not the top. Especially with users connecting over unknown wi-fi using untrusted devices, the attack vector has dramatically increased, and you can imagine it only takes a single user to open a phishing email remotely, a VPN becomes compromised and that could trigger a substantial cyber-attack.

Moving to a centralised application delivery model significantly reduces the attack surface. Security patching and image management is simplified. With this comes the added benefit of being able to swiftly roll back to earlier image versions in the event of a Ransomware or other type of Malware attack, which if successful can cost a university hundreds of thousands of pounds to remediate. This means that the university has the ability to restore services in a matter of hours, rather than weeks or months, as is the case with a traditional delivery model.

Another advantage of a centralised application delivery model is that all University data is secure in their data repositories, whether on-premises or in the cloud, meaning if a device happens to get lost or is stolen, no data resides on the endpoint device. Universities can also customise university applications and data on mobile devices, even personal devices in the case of BYOD, meaning that the risk of data leakage is also restricted.

Finally, Institutions need to move away from the old-fashioned perimeter-based security model as mentioned above, to a modern multi levelled Zero-Trust security model where absolutely nothing is automatically trusted until verified. Citrix’s approach to security is unique. We address the what, the who, the how and the why of securing all of those resources.

• First, the what. We know what device you’re using. We have endpoint management capabilities and integrations for things like EMS. We understand what the device is, and if it is in compliance or not.
• We also know who is using that device. We broker the identity to a number of identity providers, we give users a single, secure sign-on experience, and we provide multi-factor authentication where it’s appropriate — which is pretty much all the time.
• Then we can see how users are accessing their applications as well. Through the workspace, we can see what virtual app they’re using. We give you control over the environment that is used to access that application.
• Finally, the why. Using our Analytics platform – Why are they accessing that data in the first place? What information are they after? Are they authorised to use it? Is it within their normal behaviour profile to be accessing it? If not, then let’s take automated mitigating actions.

This framework provides institutions with the basis for applying many different types of security policies at many different levels.”

So to summarise:

• Backup Regularly
• Restore regularly; a backup is no good it you can’t restore
• Keep an offline backup
• Patch and update all of your systems
• Review all accounts and privileges
• Lastly, consider security tools for the network. Many organisations will protect the perimeter, the servers, the data permissions, and the endpoints. This may be sufficient, but do you need to consider tools that look at network behaviour across your LAN as well as at the perimeter?

Written by Jennifer Norman, Infrastructure Solutions Director @ XMA

References:

News update:
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/alert-issued-following-rising-attacks-on-uk-academia
NCSC Guidance:
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/alert-targeted-ransomware-attacks-on-uk-education-sector

No, I don’t have Nostradamus like powers. I only wish I did. Then I’d have seen Covid-19 coming from a long way off and I would have done something about it, but yes; 1:1 is the future of education and it will eventually be as ordinary a thing as having a pen or pencil in class or at home, wherever learning happens to take place.

It’s not an idle claim or one made to challenge or upset the status quo, but rather a clear reflection of the world we now inhabit and the sometimes-inconvenient facts which should help us recognise it as a necessary step, as opposed to a luxury. Just to be clear, we still need to read and write and cut things up and touch real things like paint and textbooks. However, when technology is so pervasive in our lives and the economy facing the onslaught of a virus and uncertainties around Brexit, we need to have a strategic response to ensure every generation can participate in whatever the future looks like. A level playing field is vital.

Let us look closely at some of the things that are driving this approach:

• 1.7 billion students were displaced as lockdowns spread across the world. 1 in 5 students didn’t have access to data or a device. Many more shared the small screen of a phone or shared the family device that was also being used for parents just to keep their job. What it communicated to our young people and families was this: if you can’t connect you can’t participate in your own education.
• The virus will be present for a considerable time and there is likely to be disruptions for individuals, classes and perhaps entire school communities. We desperately need a resilient education system that affords a consistent experience no matter where the learning happens. 1:1 helps build that resilience.
• Over two thirds (67%) of UK companies across the UK have unfilled digital vacancies. Only a third (31%) are confident UK businesses will be able to access the digital skills they need in the next three to five years. Here in Scotland we have 13,000 unfilled jobs every year. Schools shouldn’t be factories for business or FE/HE but we have a duty to ensure positive destinations for our young people and that they are ready for the jobs that are actually there. 1:1 lets us plan a curriculum that regularly develops these across disciplines.
• 1 in 5 existing jobs in UK cities are likely to be displaced by 2030 as a result of automation. Many organisations have accelerated this move due to Covid-19. What our economy will need is a digitally adept and flexible workforce that can create and sustain innovation and services like never before and make us a lighthouse nation for digital industries and inward investment. We can more easily build a pathway of upskilling for our young people when we have a robust 1:1 program in place.

This only scratches the surface in terms of a perfect storm that is building around education, challenging our ideas about how learning happens and asking us to look at what we’ve learned from the past 6 months from teachers and learners. It has developed a sense of urgency about the kinds of transformation our system needs.

What’s even more important, is to spend some time looking at what technology can bring to learners and learning, and how teachers can leverage it to reduce their workload, improve their workflow and make learning happen.

Across the UK we have a rising population of young people with additional support needs. In England alone there are over 1 million students who have a defined SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) profile. That rise is rarely matched by supportive funding. Across Apple, Google and Microsoft, technology can empower young people to take charge of how they overcome their learning challenges and personalise their learning environment. That personalisation is made possible with 1:1 and so important for helping them in their life, future learning and work.

Study after study reports that a creative & innovative mindset, digital literacy and computational thinking are some of the most important skills that businesses desire in their employees. We need to establish those skills as our learners move through their schooling. The breadth of opportunity to develop these through 1:1 is boundless and, in many cases, simply impossible otherwise; Augmented reality, infinite paint, rich coding tools across all ages and the kinds of creative tools that move children away from technology for consumption to technology for creation. All of our young people deserve to be able to grow these skills, to tinker and be curious and creative, at any time.

If we pay attention to how learning actually works in the brain, we can really accelerate learning, using digital tools to deliver high quality feedback to students, use adaptive learning apps, develop mastery and open up the kind of parental engagement that engages with the best home learning. Devices don’t teach children, teachers teach children, and they have a battery of pedagogical approaches that can be enhanced significantly through technology. That works best in a 1:1 environment where consistency of access allows the deployment of new approaches that are built on a strong pedagogical foundation. For teachers, the ability to model knowledge in deeply engaging ways, use self marking assessments, manage and distribute resources, collaborate with colleagues and generate assessments that are authentic and meaningful for their students is only the tip of the iceberg in how technology transforms their job for the better. 1:1 opens up a whole new world – not the usual 1 hour a week in the IT suite but an environment when you can make the very best of a consistent technology approach.

What do we want our nation to look like by 2030? How do we imagine the future for our own children and our communities? How can we come together to solve the problems of tomorrow? These are all questions we need to ask as employers, educators and parents.

A favourite quote of mine comes from Grace Hopper, an eloquent and wise Naval Officer and computing scientist: “The most dangerous phrase in the language is ‘We’ve always done it this way’ “. Transformation is challenging and requires rigorous thinking and smart leadership. There is also a sustained financial cost but that is manageable compared to the cost of doing nothing. There are real implications in doing nothing, both for the individual child and the wider society.

The great thing about working for XMA is the support and flexibility they offer in making such transformations happen, understanding the need, and knowing the routes through to that destination. We believe in doing better and making our education system the best in the world. We believe in young people and in our schools’ capacity to turn the page. We’re absolutely ready to meet with schools, ready to have the conversation that begins the new chapter that comes with 1:1.

Written by Michael Conlon – Transformation Consultant @ XMA

September 10, 2020 – XMA, announced today at Nutanix’s Global .NEXT Digital Experience conference that it has been awarded 2020 Global Momentum Partner of the year.

Nutanix recognized XMA as the sole recipient of the award. XMA was recognized for continually delivering Nutanix solutions at the highest levels of service and throughout the business.

XMA have worked in partnership with Nutanix since 2015, just 1 year after Nutanix opened their first UK office and have delivered Hyper-converged Infrastructure (HCI) solutions based on Nutanix technology to customers throughout that time. With XMA achieving and maintaining the highest level of partner accreditation with Nutanix, XMA provide the highest level of service to customers. This experience coupled with the extensive technical capability and thought leadership means when customers work with XMA and Nutanix they can be sure they are in safe hands.

“We’re thrilled to have honoured XMA at Partner Xchange this year for their continued success with our customers” Christian Alvarez, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Channels, Nutanix.

“We are very proud to be recognised at a global level by Nutanix.  This is fitting recognition for all the effort of XMA’s sales, marketing, commercial, services, solution, finance and logistics teams that have been a part of the effort to deliver solutions that allow our customers in the private and public sector across the UK to focus on the outcomes that they need to deliver.” Andrew Wright, XMA.

As Nutanix continues to expand its offerings beyond HCI to support customer needs and requirements XMA’s specialists work closely with existing and new customers providing update sessions, virtual labs and proactive education. Nutanix complements XMA’s approach of working with their customers to help enable them to evolve and transform the way they work across all areas of technology from end user devices, through to data centre and cloud, invisibly.

For more information email: info@xma.co.uk or call: 0115 846 4000

Brexit Committee News Update – September 2020 Update

Welcome to the latest update from XMA’s Brexit team. Due to recent focus on Covid-19, XMA have not updated our Brexit page for some time. However, with the deadline for Brexit transition still due for January 2021, XMA’s Brexit Committee met this week and we can issue the current information / guidance below.

Whilst the UK has exited the European Union at the start of 2020, no real changes in trading conditions has been experienced as a result. This will not be true if the UK and the EU cannot agree a trade deal by the end of 2020. Recent reports have shown the Cabinet Office preparing for widespread disruption should such a scenario coincide with a second wave of Coronavirus in the UK.

XMA’s approach is to prepare for the worst and hope that the situation is considerably better.

Delivery Delays from Europe

Recent studies have shown that some delays at ports of exit/entry are likely. Given that the majority of goods supplied by XMA are currently imported into the EU via mainland Europe and shipped across the English Channel, such disruption is bound to have an impact. Hence XMA and our parent company Westcoast have taken or will take the following mitigating actions:

1. New increased storage – XMA’s new 346k sqft facility in Andover has been fully operational since the start of the year and has allowed increased space for XMA and our Customers; increased services (e.g. configuration, PDI, storage, bundling) and will provide reduced cost outsourcing opportunities for our OEM partners and Customers. The appropriate EORI number and TSP status are in place.

2. Short-term deals – Previous ‘false Brexits’ were covered by stocking deals with OEM partners to mitigate the immediate disruption to normal trade. XMA have already started working with Suppliers to ensure inventory planning over the change period.

3. XMA are working with freight forwarders, vendor logistics managers to ensure the smoothest possible importation through UK ports of entry. This includes correct commodity codes, country of origin information and paperwork.

4. Tariffs – Most (but not all!) IT products supplied by XMA in the last 180 days had no tariffs applicable on WTO terms or the UK Global Tariff (applicable from 1st January 2021).An accurate commodity code which allows tariff application to any goods imported is an important part of XMA’s work at present with Suppliers is encouraging them to provide a complete library of codes for every live sku. XMA are currently looking at automating a tariff look-up procedure to apply an appropriate tariff to the cost of the product if applicable. These can clearly change with little notice.

5. Other costs -VAT deferment costs, import management and transportation costs may also increase cost of goods after 1 January 2021 and will be applied systematically.

6. Finally, XMA and Westcoast are working with vendors to arrange direct delivery into the UK from the Far East (i.e. avoiding the EU altogether). Westcoast can act as a master distributor, importer or merely a 3PL provider to a wide range of suppliers.

Westcoast Exports

XMA and Westcoast now have warehousing in the UK and across Europe (inc Ireland). We are investigating the possibility of having a bonded capability in the UK for Irish goods and those for re-export to Europe. All Supplier contracts are being amended to allow for such transactions. We can manage the nuances of exporting to the EU including tariff application and shipping administration. Customers will be asked for standard information in advance of quoting whether the order is received by EDI, web or via Westcoast sales.

Ireland

The new Brexit arrangements for Ireland and Northern Ireland are well understood and we are working with our logistics provider/freight forwarder to ensure we minimise delays when delivering across the Irish Sea. There are no plans to enhance Westcoast’s current cross-stocking facility in Tallaght, Dublin.

Conclusion

Our recent Brexit Committee has reinvigorated our Brexit plans and the committee will meet every month in the run up to 31st December 2020 and will report back via ‘Brexit News’ every month. We will have updates on the progress of plans outlined above.

All questions or feedback are welcome by email: approvals@xma.co.uk

XMA have been awarded the opportunity to provide a wide range of off-the-shelf IT products to meet a variety of requirements across the Welsh Public Sector. Named sole supplier for the supply of a Commodity IT Hardware Catalogue, this framework is the All Wales Framework Agreement for the Supply of IT products and Services (ii).

The objective of the Agreement is to create a 1-stop-shop for IT commodity products and related services, enabling IT service departments to meet all requirements from a single framework; It also aims to reflect current technology, whilst ensuring sufficient flexibility to meet technology changes in the digital and IT market.

The catalogue range will include the supply of (but not limited to):

• peripherals (i.e. printers, scanners, USB memory sticks, external hard drives, web cams, keyboards, mouse devices, speakers, digital cameras etc.);
• consumables (i.e. storage disks, cables, spares/ replacement parts, tools for repairs/ cleaning materials);
• ancillary products (digital cameras, Dictaphones, etc.); and
• low volume hardware purchases (smartphones, monitors, tablets, laptops etc.).

The full agreement consists of five lots, of which XMA have been named sole supplier on Lot 1, as well as achieving a place on Lots 2 and 5.
Lot 1: Commodity IT Hardware Catalogue
Lot 2: IT Hardware
Lot 3: Licensing and Subscriptions
Lot 4: Audio Visual
Lot 5: Solutions

Ian Cunningham, Sales & Marketing Director at XMA had this to say:

“XMA are delighted to be selected as partner to the National Procurement Service for Wales in the provision of a National IT commodity products eCatalogue. Our appointment is a reflection of the commitment we have to providing Public Sector customers in Wales with the most cost effective, broad ranging IT products, all delivered through our market leading eCommerce platform.”

The catalogue is accessible, secure and offers value for money. The catalogue is now live and you are invited to register your interest here.

There has been much change and uncertainty in the world in the past several months, with the education community being one of the most affected in terms of needing to introduce technological changes to how teaching and learning is experienced.

The Anywhere School, is Google’s approach to ‘back to school’ bringing updates to tools in order to lighten the load for teachers, families and students.

Below are some of the updates Google for Education have introduced or are in the pipeline:

A safer, more engaging Meet experience

-In September, an introduction of a larger tiled view of up to 49 people and an integrated Jamboard will be accessible for collaboration. There will also be new controls within Meet so moderators can choose to always join first, end meetings for all participants, disable in-meeting chat and much more.

-In October, custom and blurred backgrounds will be introduced to Meet along with breakout rooms and attendance tracking will be launched allowing for more engagement in classes and insights on participation.

-Later on in the year, a hand raising function will be enabled along with a Q&A polling.

Better support for students, educators and admins in Classroom

-A new to-do widget on the classes page will help students see what’s coming up, whats missing and whats’s been graded.

-Teachers can now share a link to invite students to their class, which makes joining a class much easier.

-Classroom will soon be available in 10 additional languages, to reach 54 languages in total.

-Admins will have access to more powerful toolsto manage G Suite and Classroom. For example, school leaders with Enterprise licenses will have greater visibility into Classroom usage via new Data Studio dashboards, which allow admins to see active classes, measure feature adoption, and monitor teacher and student engagement.

The conversation around the shift to remote working is constantly ongoing, and we have all seen first-hand the positive impacts on businesses. This includes anything from improved collaboration and productivity, through to better mental health and wellbeing. Technology has been a key enabler in supporting the move to remote working.  

Technology adopted during lockdown to enable employees to work remotely has shaped not just organisations during lockdown, but strategic business planning moving forward. We have already seen announcements from large enterprise technology organisations, shifting their working model to remote, either entirely or in part.  

The productivity benefits of working from home centre around the loss of the need to commute. With the average person’s work commute at 60 minutes each way, this has saved on average a staggering 10 hours per week spent mostly in the car, on the train or bus. As a result of this, the European Environment Agency’s data confirms large decreases in air pollutant concentrations, of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations, largely due to reduced traffic and other activities, especially in major cities under lockdown measures.  

Reductions of around half have been seen in some locations, for example: 

• In Milan, average concentrations of NO2 for the past month have been at least 24 % lower than the month prior. The average concentration during the week of 16-22 March was 21 % lower than for the same week in 2019. 
• In Rome, average NO2 concentrations for the past four weeks were 26-35 % lower than for the same weeks in 2019. 
• In Barcelona, average NO2 levels went down by 40 % from one week to the next. Compared with the same week in 2019, the reduction was 55 %. 

• In Madrid, average NO2 levels went down by 56 % from one week to the next. Compared with the same week in 2019, the reduction was 41 %. 
• In Lisbon, average NO2 levels went down by 40 % from one week to the next. Compared with the same week in 2019, the reduction was 51 %. 

(European Environment Agency, 2020). 

After achieving and analysing this reduction in pollution, will the Covid-19 lockdown result in real progress to tackle climate change?  

Whilst addressing long-term air quality problems requires ambitious policies and forward-looking investments, the Covid-19 lockdown demonstrated the capability we must vastly reduce our emissions. When the noise of airplanes and traffic was gone, it helped us understand and have empathy for the effects of climate change on future generations. The lockdown also demonstrated to employers that employees can effectively work from anywhere with best placed technology, and in turn contribute toward a greener and more sustainable future.  

Is your business set up for remote working?  

XMA have been supporting businesses throughout Covid-19 to achieve efficient digital workspaces. Get in touch to discuss your Digital Workspace now. 

Reference:  European Environment Agency (2020). Air Pollution. Available at: https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/air-pollution-goes-down-as [Accessed: 24.08.2020] 

Technology has long been an important consideration when developing more creative and engaging learning opportunities. It is also an important tool for classroom management and assisting teacher workload. However, there has never been a year like 2020 where the importance of embracing all things digital is critical for the continuation of education.

It is safe to say the re-opening of schools, colleges and universities has been a rocky and uncertain road during and since the UK Lockdown. Educators planning ahead for the new academic year will no doubt have lots of obstacles to face, with the need to plan for multiple scenarios. This might include:

• The possibility that all students will not be able to return to the classroom and need to continue distance learning
• Social distancing measures will still be in place so education will need to be delivered with out physical contact
• Learning hours may need to be extended to allow students to catch up on missed work

It has become clear that the only way to face some of these challenges is through the use of technology. The deployment and adoption of technology can be challenging when not properly executed and aligned with educational objectives – not to mention navigating during an unexpected pandemic!

That being said, institutions have been forced to develop or re-design their digital strategies to suit remote learning and contact free classrooms, while also maintaining security and safeguarding provisions. While considering this new way of working, senior leadership and IT departments will have a lot of questions.

• How do we deploy and manage our digital strategy to meet short and long term objectives?
• Can our infrastructure support this technology and how will this affect our existing safeguarding measures?
• How do we ensure education is accessible for every type of learner?
• How do we support teachers, parents and carers to deliver education digitally?
• How can technology become the primary method of delivering a full, well rounded curriculum?
• What financial implications could this have on my education budget?

What is the solution?

Apple technology partnered with our expertise and capabilities to deploy, manage and support adoption provides the perfect solution to form your digital strategy. iPad and Mac work in perfect harmony together to provide devices that can benefit both student and teacher, in the classroom and at home. The App Store provides thousands of apps to enhance creativity, develop critical thinking and teamwork skills and manage workflows. Our dedicated Digital Learning team are also best placed to train educators, introduce unique ways to use your technology to deliver a well rounded curriculum and collaborate with learners and faculty both in school and at home.

We want to help answer your questions and the many others institutions are likely to have when planning for the new academic year. Find out more about what to consider when developing your digital strategy, as we move forward to ‘the new normal’ here.

One thing which 2020 has taught us all is the need for adaptability for businesses to survive.

Having turned your working practices upside-down, reducing the number of workers in your building and enabling employees to work from home – now you’re encouraging them to return to the office. How do you follow that up and create a plan for the future? What should that future look like?

We believe the next challenge is to create a plan which includes:

• The stability which creates opportunities for growth and development.
• Enough flexibility to allow for changes which will keep coming.
• Security and comfort from returning to some traditional working practices and spaces.
• Continuing beneficial new working practices, including enabling employees with greater responsibility and rewarding them with openness and cooperation.

But, how can we do this?

Reinforcing the Digital Workspace

Many businesses will have spent the last four, or more, months getting to grips with the opportunities enabled by their digital capability.

With the transformation made necessary by lockdown, businesses will have considered security and management as well as functionality. And, having developed these systems, ensuring they are stable enough for the future makes much more sense than going back to pre-lockdown limitations.

That’s not to say it will be easy, the changes made by many companies will have been developed in haste – ensuring these are the right changes (and changes made in the right way) will be a complicated task. As covered in a previous article, Navigating the New Normal, “Having taken those steps to change, now is the time to review, refocus and reinforce – to ensure these changes aren’t short-term fixes but strong, positive developments which will lead to future growth.”

So, while it will be necessary to review and reinforce these processes to ensure long term stability and opportunities for growth, this is the first step to creating the digital workspace your business needs going forward.

Reintroducing the Physical Workspace

Returning to a subject we explored in Navigating the New Normal, the question is ‘How do we use our offices moving forward?’

At the most basic level, some of our issues can be managed through signage and provision of sanitising stations. However, to ensure the confidence of your people and efficiency within your space, it may be necessary to implement smarter measures – maybe using technology to manage the density of occupancy or monitor routes used by employees to avoid congestion.

In the future, it will be important to use your understanding of your employees and the technology you have available to ensure a safe, smart office environment.

Allowing staff to book desks for working is the first step; however, this needs to include an understanding of the other processes surrounding this desk use. Of course, nearby desks (within an agreed radius) must be kept free and, once used, a desk must be appropriately cleaned before being made available to anyone else.

As well as looking at how smart workspaces are allocated and managed, you might promote the use of smart meeting areas, to enable collaboration regardless of location, and adopt smart document solutions – with contactless printing or digital signatures. These changes, prompted by our current situation, will likely remain, so need to be focused on your goals of increasing productivity and engagement for the long term.

Understanding the Hybrid Workspace

So, how do we ensure the changes we’re making are building systems which are fit for the future? This is something we’ve talked about before, in How Agile Working is Changing our Future.

We’ve already looked at the need to build intelligence into processes to ensure ease of use and efficiency for the workforce as a whole. Now is the time to be considering the possibilities as well as the precautions, to learn from our experiences and build stronger and more flexible systems which benefit everyone in the business. This will be particularly true as we develop systems enabling personalised digital workspaces – again improving efficiency and engagement.

In terms of our digital workspace, providing systems which are available wherever your employees are, tools which enable easy and efficient management and allow for easy communication – these are the most basic standards we have come to expect. Employee performance and engagement is improved by allowing individuals to have some element of choice over where they work.

Physical spaces should also work as well for our teams as they do for our customers and managers. One benefit to the business will come from providing the best workspace for employee engagement and efficiency, and this should be the aim when returning to work. There are additional benefits, of course, in the efficiencies now possible within these physical spaces.

As you look to provide the right environment for your customers and staff, how will you ensure you’re building systems and processes which are helping build your business?

If you need help to understand what’s possible – how you can build a hybrid agile workspace with room to grow and flourish – get in touch. It would be great to talk.

Written by Terry Chana – Director of Workspace Solutions @ XMA