The evolution of work
Why communication and collaboration matter more than ever
The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the way we work, accelerating trends towards home and remote working so that practices that once seemed experimental became mainstream within a few short weeks. In 2019 only 5% of employed people in the UK worked from home. By the end of April 2020, this had risen to 47%.
IT moved at speed to support this sudden pivot. Worldwide sales of laptop and desktop PCs increased by 11.2% between April and June 2020, while sales of office furniture increased by up to 438%. Crucially, COVID-19 delivered a huge boost for cloud computing. Global cloud spending rose by 37% during the first quarter of 2020 and continued to grow. A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) and Virgin Media O2 Business found that the COVID-19 pandemic had accelerated digital transformation projects for UK businesses by three years on average, and by four years for organisations with more than 250 employees.
