'I can't see anyone going back to full occupancy' - CIOs on 'new normal', and what it will mean for their tech suppliers

Two IT leaders who have spent the last two months shifting staff to a remote working model will be opening up on what skills and technology they will need from the channel post-COVID.

As part of our inaugural Deskflix virtual event on the remote working revolution (which you can register to attend here for free), we are giving CRN's audience the chance to hear directly from end-user customers about their pain points and requirements during this difficult period.

What will the post-COVID working set up look like, and will this change how technology is consumed and delivered?

What traits do IT leaders most value in their technology suppliers right now, and how will this change in the future?

And what are their dos and don'ts for how CRN's audience should interface with them?

During this session, Mark Hill, group CIO at global staffing business Tenth Revolution Group, will predict that - even post-COVID - CIOs will have to adjust to a new "hybrid" world where most users are working from home at least some of the time.

"My guess is the average will end up being a couple of days a week," he said.

"And if you think about the impact of a 20-40 per cent office occupancy reduction, commercial property is not a space I'd want to be in in the short to medium term. I'm already leading a new ways of working project in the firm to assess these kind of things."

Infrastructure, which Hill billed as "the poor man of IT", will enjoy a big swing back thanks to COVID, he added.

"For infrastructure providers, cloud providers, IP telephony etc - well, it's boom time guys," he said.

Also on the panel is Andy Maxwell, global IS director of Pyrotek Inc, who said the remote working boom may force his firm to rethink its approach to telephony.

"The current situation has proved that it is possible to work remotely and I can see a number of people looking to maintain that, and therefore I think we will change," he said.

"...We then have to rethink things like telephony for our customer service people, who might be spread across the different countries. Do we have the right systems to move calls around them if they're going to be working from home? We've got a lot of things to think about if the new normal is working from home."

CRN Deskflix on the Remote Working Revolution will see top bosses from the likes of Softcat, ANS, Block Solutions, CCS Media, Logicalis and Bytes go head to head on how the channel should be positioning itself for the post-COVID order. Register for free to attend here.