Welcome back to Ringside. This is where we talk leadership, technology and communication with the people who are shaping the future of work. Today, we caught up with Mike Swain, UK CEO at SCC.<\/p>\n
We are Europe’s biggest privately-owned IT solutions business and the technology division of Rigby Group plc. I have been a part of SCC for more than 34 years, leading its services division to consistent year-on-year double-digit growth and driving SCC’s transformation from an IT reseller to one of Europe’s principal technology solutions businesses.<\/p>\n
In July 1987 I joined SCC as a software support executive and within ten years became one of its youngest directors, heading up the professional services business. I was appointed to SCC’s executive board in 2002 and led the growth of our UK Services business, alongside deploying global support centres across Romania and Vietnam.<\/p>\n
During my role as managing director of services, I oversaw continual growth and successive record financial results. I became UK CEO in 2020.<\/p>\n
When the pandemic took hold last March, businesses were forced to enable immediate and widespread homeworking. On the face of it, this meant a requirement for more laptops and mobile devices, peripherals and other hardware. It also meant more collaboration solutions for video conferencing and secure remote access. However, people didn’t see straight away the additional bandwidth and hosting requirements, security implications, corporate IT policies, the shift in IT budget, and prioritisation. All of these things became a major challenge for every IT leader almost overnight.<\/p>\n
Technology made all this possible. But, as the pandemic went on, organisations changed from reactive to proactive. They were almost working backwards to create new digital strategies based on the new normal that lockdowns and home working had called for.<\/p>\n
One of the positives we can take from the pandemic is the global acceleration of digital transformation. Technology is critical to this. It will help deliver an economic bounce back and ensure businesses are more resilient to similar challenges in the future.<\/p>\n
As important as technology is, people's motivation to come together at a time of crisis is astonishing. <\/a><\/span>Click To Tweet<\/a><\/span><\/blockquote>\nWhat have you found most challenging and what lessons have you learned supporting a remote workforce?<\/h2>\n