Photo of Shelly Sack
Written by
Shelly Sack
Shelly is Manager of Content Programs for AOTMP®

Two years into the pandemic, those in the telecommunications, mobility, and IT management industry have faced a host of new challenges and successes. These five organizations opened the door to discuss workplace changes, supply chain challenges, and clearly stating limits to keep clients satisfied during these unexpected times. For AOTMP® members, we invite you to engage in the conversation further through our online member community.

Supply Chain Management Amidst Device Acceleration

One of the biggest changes the pandemic brought was the acceleration of smaller devices in the industry. As employees went home, initially many companies told employees to get any device they could, and now the help desk and IT departments are being faced supporting 60 different models and supplies, and the resulting headaches.

We all thought the changes experienced at the beginning of the pandemic might be two weeks; here we are two years later and business will not return to what it was. In a time like this, we help keep our business continuity and meet employee needs by focusing on how customers’ needs are changing and how to meet them.

Photo of Bob Burnett
Bob Burnett is Director of B2B Solutions Deployment and Planning at Brother USA

As a supplier, we get to see how other organizations are managing their processes and they’re all different. Some need scan-to-cloud, some need devices to be used in a home environment, and some still need in-office equipment. Everyone is looking at their technology stack from top to bottom and identifying, ‘Do I really need 10 large copiers or smaller devices through the organization?’ Their employees might want it to be in a small copy room or common area; a distributed print solution makes themmore comfortable and more efficient. Printing and scanning live in all industries and there is a need there; the question is, ‘What is the best fit for the particular company?’

Personally, Brother has been operating in a hybrid bucket. Our corporate office is at a 50% level, but they’re now on site with channel partners and customers who accept visitors. Our European sales organization is operating very similar to the U.S. We are Japan based and have more than 40 locations around the world. Some of these are production locations and this presents its own challenges.

We have made a concerted effort to focus our efforts on channel partners that support corporate business; on the supply side with production capacities, we have worked hard to forecast as best we can during this time period and so far have been able to manage it. We make efforts to locally source parts near the manufacturing location and use multiple vendors to avoid supply issues.

Unexpected Growth During Changes in Work Environment

Greg McIntyre is CEO at Tellennium

Our work environment has definitely changed and like all other businesses in these times, there’s still some flux day to day with the variants and quarantines. We initially sent everyone home to work remotely for several months for those working out of an office, other than a select group to handle mail in the mornings. We then moved to a hybrid schedule and continue to do so with three days in-office and two days at home. Of course, everyone is welcome to come into the office at any time and often do, but remote work is here to stay.

We’ve also grown over 40% since the pandemic start which has had its own set challenges including growth during a worker shortage era. However, with full remote worker capabilities for most positions, quality and culture have provided us the ability to hire and retain some really great, experienced people to keep up with the demand.

During the pandemic onset and throughout 2020 our customers leaned on us even more heavily for support, moves, adds, and changes as most organizations were either overwhelmed with work or had furloughed workers. Statistics can be difficult to discern at times but almost 25% of baby boomers retired in 2020 with early buyouts. These were experienced people and there is just not enough talent out there to replace them. At the same time, costs have gone up, wages have gone up, and it’s easier to move to another company as a remote worker, leaving major voids in corporations.

Hybrid Workplace, Mental Wellbeing, and Community

Photo of Walter Berger
Walter Berger is President & co-CEO of Kymeta Corporation

When the pandemic began, our first reaction was based on the well-being and safety of our employees. We had a full complement of engineers and scientists as well as the manufacturing and administration side with a total of nearly 300 employees.

While the states and the federal government were determining the rules, we were aggressive. We sent everybody home and that dynamic was interesting. Our headquarters is in Redmond, Washington where we develop and manufacture our products. We were months from launching our s econd-generation product in November 2020 and we had to deal with the environment we were in.

We have always had flexible workplace rules, but now we are very hybrid. You have a group of people that have to be in the office and others will come in in some cadence.

Some employees may need to be there 80% or more, 50%, or less than 20% and we categorize by activity in certain areas. We’ve had to be agile because the rules have changed. The requirements of safety and health have changed.

Our business is considered essential, so some employees came in to advance our products. We called it a Tiger SWAT team and they established procedures that made them comfortable and safe. I was proud of how the team thought through that process.

We maintained a heavy focus on how to keep business running virtually and optimize the continuation of the ideation to put the product in the manufacturing environment. Customers had a real and immediate need for our products, and we had to continue to think of how to deal with those customers. We believe we’re a learning organization. Great businesses have guiding principles and our principles didn’t change; what did change was how we went about doing business. We have an organization that represents real values. The pandemic was hugely impactful, but what we didn’t forget during these challenging times were the guiding principles core to our business practices, along with ideation and product development of high quality manufacturing.

We did move to virtual communications with our customers and suppliers. We also needed to have greater independent decision-making and ensure we were not overloading people or getting burned out in the process. We developed extraordinary candid relationships with one another.

Focus on mental wellbeing and community

We were really focused on people’s stress levels. One of the dynamics I saw that was surprising — even though I did it myself — people weren’t taking any time off. I believe this is partially because there was no place to go and partly due to uncertainty in the world.

I was trying to think, “What is the problem, and what can be done?” Employees were stressed at home and everything was moving so fast. But if the team is at the same level of velocity, they can be super engaged. I established “Kymeta holidays,” where everyone in the company ceased work for the same period.

Nobody worked, email traffic and all demands were really suppressed, and people could enjoy the day off and decompress and do whatever they did on their days off. We used them sometimes to build on existing holidays to turn three-day weekends into four days off. I’ve had a lot of positive feedback and it’s been highly received. I’ve told several people at my level I’ve done this and it’s amazing how many of them put the same program into place.

We also saw a lot of difficulty for people within our communities. We’ve put in formalized programs into how we give back to the community, with food banks and such, and that’s become really important for us.

We’re not at the end, of course; standing up your own manufacturing environment is a challenge in any environment. I couldn’t have been more proud of our organization.

Setting Expectations, Exploring New Personal Paths

As a technology broker, we host many education and in-person events. We added testing and temperature stations, wristbands with a red/green/yellow system indicating comfort levels with physical proximity, and also encouraged our co-partners to go online if uncomfortable. In the early stages of the pandemic, things were shut down; as restrictions lightened up in 2021, we went back to holding events and our education series.

Photo of Chris Whitaker
Chris Whitaker is VP of Advanced Solutions, IoT and Wireless at Telarus

We had to rethink and get creative. We secured larger ballrooms to accommodate social distancing for classroom/conference environments. We had 6-foot tables with one person. rethinking and getting creative.

On the business side, we saw a huge spike in mobility sales — cellphones and tablets as well as cellular gateways for remote workers. As a technology solutions broker, we have 300 suppliers for our selling partners to work with.

We bring the right suppliers to the partners, offer sales engineers support as well as commission support and other financial services to our partners. Some supply chain delays have occurred for various sensors or hardware. Everyone understands what’s going on, but it doesn’t mean it’s received well.

It’s always about setting proper expectations. If we know there’s a delay in the delivery of services or technology, we communicate it.

On a personal level, I wanted to do something to stay connected, so the idea of doing a podcast called “The Wireless Way” was born. I wanted another platform to stay relevant and to help my business partners with a podium for their message. I’m a big fan of Mike Rowe’s “The Way I Heard It” podcast and I modeled my interview style and casualness after him.

My podcast is strictly another tool in my toolbox; it’s my brand, but if my employer can benefit from it, I’m in.

Remote Work, Employee Empathy Amidst Mobility Surge

Photo of DJ Oreb
DJ Oreb is President of Managed Services at DMI

The pandemic pushed companies to increase their business objective roadmaps towards more mobile-centric environments. Mobility became more of a necessity than an opportunity to be able to sustain business, as well as well as gain efficiency through technology. The opportunity created an influx in business, which created some challenges to handle the increasing volumes at a speed that would not be traditional in a typical engagement. Companies had to become agile and collaborative in identifying new and innovative ways of working, as well as adjusting their business objectives and goals for increased outcomes. The accelerated speed caused business to identify existing processes and enhance them to increase onboarding capabilities, as well as look at business processes while trying to elevate the end-user experience. This created an opportunity for increased customer intimacy. Companies had to work closely with their customers more than ever, as all businesses were facing the same changes and challenges simultaneously.

Business leaders were in a position in which they had to become more empathetic to their employees, as they were experiencing some of the same challenges in an environment considered as the new normal. A transformation effort in the way companies supported their employees required an overhaul from a traditional in house support model to a remote-based support model. This required organizations to have to look at new tools and opportunities, challenging the normal way of doing business and quickly innovate to not only increase their user support but also continuously innovate their infrastructure and support methodology.

The outcome from all these expedited changes in a relatively short period has brought about a newfound way of doing business, increased profitability, increased opportunity for engagement, and employee enablement.

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