Dear Maxsum Clients and Partners,
As we head into 2020 and the start of a new decade (!), it’s the perfect time to reflect on not just the events of 2019, but the last 10 years of exponential technology change that have altered not only how we work and live today, and the balance we strike between the two!
When we go to industry events, there is one quote we hear over and over again – that “the pace of change will never again be as slow as it is today”. And cliché though that quote may have become, it still holds true.
The “20-teens” have seen the rise and maturation of technologies that have become central to how we work and live. The cloud and mobile device era has supported our move to greater mobile device use for work and play. Tablet and smart phone use has deeply embedded this decade, and whereas we once “went to work” and sat at our PC in the office, as we head into 2020, the majority of us can now “take our work with us” wherever we go – and on no less than 4 devices each on average.
Chat-based collaboration and video conferencing has become the norm, and the more recent move towards accessing all the apps we use for these purposes through a single platform, like Microsoft Teams, is already in full swing.
What this has also meant is that we started consuming and producing a lot more data. In fact, we’ve already produced 40x more bytes of data than there are stars in the observable universe! There’s a mind-boggling stat you can roll out at your XMAS lunch table (you’re welcome!). The manufacturing sector has already jumped on board with commercial manufacturing sector IoT applications already starting to produce efficiency gains. But for other business sectors, understanding the value of the data we have, finding better ways to process it, store it, and put it to use is an ongoing theme that is only going to grow in importance as we head into the 2020s. This will involve learning to leverage the potential of data analytics, business intelligence and IoT in more strategic and intentional ways.
It’s not all sunshine and lollipops though. Our new found flexibility has expanded our digital perimeters well beyond the controlled environs of our company networks and opened us up to the aggressive onslaught of a whole new breed of cyber threats and malicious actors. The sheer pace of innovation in the cyber threat landscape has left many businesses on the back foot, and now that we have the awareness, we need to spend the 2020s ensuring cybersecurity and data privacy is a top-tier agenda item in each and every business discussion we’re having.
Lots of exciting developments to look forward to as well. In particular we’ll start to see some truly commercial applications for IoT, predictive business intelligence, machine learning and augmented reality filter down into the business landscape, and we’re excited to be taking our clients on that journey! We’ll also be continuing our focus on the new breed of collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams, and how they support our modern workplace’s cross-pollination of people, projects, and communication to make our work life more productive but also preserve focus time and better work-life balance.
At Maxsum, 2019 has been a year of expansion in lots of ways. We’ve had a host of new team members come on board and rolled out a series of new product and consulting offerings across our security suite of products, Microsoft Teams and business intelligence projects.
Innovation was a major focus for us this year, supported by Maxsum’s sponsorship of Connecting Up’s 2019 Transform Technology in the Not-for-Profit Sector Conference in Melbourne, the Victorian Digital Innovation Festival’s 2019 Bendigo Invention and Innovation Festival (BIIF), as well as our recent involvement working with some of our region’s most innovative start-ups in the Latrobe Accelerator Program.
We’re excited for 2020 and look forward to embarking on the next generation of technology change with you, our clients and partners.
In the meantime, like many of you, the Maxsum office will close over the Christmas and New Year season.
Please note that all Maxsum offices will be closed from 5:30pm Friday 20 December 2019, reopening on Monday 6 January 2020.
Our emergency after-hours number will be operating during the shutdown period. All critical issues are to be logged BY PHONE ONLY to 1300 629 786 during the shutdown period.
We wish you, your staff and your families all the best for the Holiday Season, and look forward to partnering with you for growth in even bigger and better ways in 2020.
Best wishes,
Joe Ciancio, Managing Director & the Team at Maxsum.
