Why services are vital to the next age of business
By Emmanuel Asika, Country Head, HP Nigeria
It seems like it’s the end of work as we know it, given the significant transformation and changes in recent years. The growing need for hybrid working environments has led businesses to explore new ways of securely linking systems and staff. Meanwhile, many institutions are wrestling with a shortage of IT personnel brought about by the widespread phenomenon of the ‘Great Resignation,’ which is rapidly growing around the worldI.
The latter is even worse in Nigeria, where a great number of IT professionals are resigning daily and heading to countries like Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, in search of the proverbial ‘greener pastures,’ a phenomenon known in local parlance as ‘Japa,’ a Yoruba word that simply means ‘to run away’ or ‘escape.’ Apart from the medical field, the Japa syndrome seems to have hit the IT sector the most, with many tech developers either leaving the countryII in search of better paying jobs or working remotely for foreign companies.
While IT costs around the world are on the rise, interest in managed services is equally increasing. Such a scenario may appear staggering, but it shouldn’t. As these changes are reevaluating the way people and businesses work, IT as an industry is reacting with inventive solutions for the majority of the urgent challenges faced by organisations. The increase in all-inclusive services for hardware, software, and amongst others helps businesses to adjust, grow, and constantly renew themselves to be able to provide customers with capabilities they desire. This is because services will not only propel the subsequent business revolution, but they will also be the base for their growth.
New age, fresh tests
Research firm Gartner estimated that by the end of 2023, 48 percent of knowledge workers around the world – engineers, accountants, and writers – will work either fully remotely (9 percent) or in a hybrid arrangement (39 percent). So, it is important to build robust IT structures and solutions that will empower these hybrid staff to be productive, wherever they will be working from. It is equally important to obtain an emerging blend of remote gadgets, cloud-based software solutions, and on-premises hardware.
Yet, achieving the goal of acquiring the perfect IT personnel proves to be a challenging task. Despite the long-standing global demand for IT workers, the increasing shortage of skilled personnel in the industry has become a cause for concern in recent times.
A Nigerian business survey showed that 58 percent of IT decision makers in Nigeria view a shortage of personnel with IT skills as one of the main threats to their business. The survey also found that 34 percent of tech decision makers in Nigeria were planning to move to a new region, and 33 percent into a new country. Expectedly, it’s all about more money, more flexibility, reduced stress, and new experiences. Numerous organisations in Nigeria and Africa are anticipated to face challenges related to tech skills, and these issues are expected to intensify in 2024 and the years to come.
These undercurrents are a disaster for IT units, many of them already under-staffed, and at a time when businesses really need them most. Luckily, the right services can deal with such growing obstacles.
Help is here
Over time, HP has been researching different kinds of innovations that can assist companies around the world to traverse this new era, and managed services and solutions are top of the list. In contrast to total gadget possession, these end-to-end options, just like HP’s Managed Print Services, are convenient, flexible, scalable, secure, and manageable. Personalization is rapidly becoming the new thing. Today, to be successful, businesses need bespoke solutions that fulfil the changing expectations of consumers as effortlessly as they enable access to competencies.
We are convinced that this is where the future generation of managed services will come into play – narrowing the skill gap, and at the same time delivering solutions needed to empower and protect a hybrid staff. For instance, the HP Device as a Service (DaaS) assists IT units cut the rate and intricacy of running devices during their lifespan of gadgets, delivering gadgets, repair services, and AI-driven analytics in a formularised payment. We also provide bespoke offerings for special needs and budgets.
Future-proofing IT
Fully managed services strengthen IT units, delivering the know-how and materials that organisations require to prevail over present uncertainties.
Managed services enable organisations to double up and grow to satisfy the present needs and be ready for future expansion. Having access to extra capability and up-to-date solutions helps businesses to easily transform digitally, thus decreasing the danger and price of doing so. What’s more, digital services enable businesses to grow competencies in step with changing consumer demands – all the while not being obliged to update technology. HP’s acquisition of Teradici in 2021 presents a supportive set of cloud-based and remote experiences to products like HP workstations, presenting consumers with faster computing and the suppleness of simulated access that will satisfy their personal requirements.
