Intelligent CIO APAC Issue 09 | Page 24

TRENDING expecting a full office return this year – eight times more than Australia .
It is important to note the word ‘ full ’ here , as the data also makes it clear that very few respondents expect to not return to the office at all . What we ’ re witnessing here is the birth of the hybrid workplace , and that means we need to move from our current state of ‘ we can get work done at home ’ to ‘ we can be a fully operational business from anywhere ’.
A new role for technology would not have been possible . Our economy could be in tatters , rather than having just bounced out of the recession with the strongest quarter of economic growth in 45 years .
As a result , more than three quarters ( 78 %) of Australian businesses surveyed now view IT as more strategic to the business in light of the pandemic , again ahead of global counterparts . This renewed relevance is causing business leaders to pay more attention to what ’ s happening in the IT department and demand more from it .
We owe it all to technology for enabling this sudden transition . Without collaborative tools such as Teams , Zoom , Slack , and – despite the on-going debate – a stable broadband network in the NBN , this
Cloud is fast becoming the environment that supports enterprises , with the industry tipped to pass US $ 1 billion this year .
So , to develop a fully operational hybrid workplace and workforce , and meet these new expectations , we need to go a level deeper in how we think about and use technology . Businesses need to create the right ‘ engine ’ to power it .
That engine is cloud – already a prominent feature of our personal and business lives , driving everything from our Google searches , apps on our smartphones and even gaming . Cloud is fast becoming the environment that supports enterprises , with the
Lee Thompson , Managing Director at Nutanix A / NZ
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