2020 flipped everyone’s plans for the year upside down, with no corner of the world left untouched. In this state of complete disarray, the primary business challenge for many was to keep customers happy while rapidly shifting staff to remote working. With this now mastered for most businesses and homeworking being the new norm, the next hurdle for leaders will be getting the balance right between the many conflicting desires of those in their workforce.

This year has been more turbulent than most. From setting out strategic business goals to embarking on new personal adventures, plans set out – in all aspects of life – have been well and truly rumbled. However, as businesses try to navigate the choppy waters posed by the pandemic and the changing needs of their people, customers and suppliers, they should strive to take advantage of this window of opportunity by rethinking how they operate.

It baffles me that some 16,000 who had tested positive for COVID-19 did not have their information uploaded to the Test and Trace system because it was reliant on a 13-year-old legacy IT and, as it turns out, a complicated Excel sheet.

COVID-19 has brought about sweeping changes across all industries. Whether for better or worse, these changes are forcing a reset, providing an opportunity for businesses to emerge in a much stronger position.

As much as we hate this phrase, Babble was born in the cloud. We don’t have any fixed technology so naturally, when Boris gave the order to stay at home our business found it easy to adapt. Our employees work, collaborate and communicate around one central platform, available on any device, anywhere. Our contact centre isn’t fixed to an office with phones and headsets, and our cyber security isn’t something we ever need to worry about.