Is the world shrinking, or is it expanding?

Technology transcends geography

Silver linings

Well, what a crisis of readjustment we’ve all been through over the past 18 months. Every part of every economy everywhere has been hit. It all came so fast too. From the early rumblings of a virus that many, including me, thought was likely to be not much more remarkable than a serious wave of some new ‘flu, we saw a catastrophe unfold that none of us has ever seen in our lifetime.

Let me say, straight off the bat, that I hope you and yours weathered the storm and I wish continued good health to all my colleagues, business associates and friends; near and far.

Of course, it’s far too early to say that the dust has settled, and in parts of the world things continue to get worse. Without overstating anything I believe we’ll all eventually look back on this period as one that changed so much about how we perceive things, how we relate to people, what we truly value.

From a business perspective we’ve all faced challenges; not least that of combining business as usual, wherever possible, with the new shape of business that we had to adapt to as much as we had to adapt to new ways of living.

Our worlds shrank as we got locked down; restricted personal contact all round. Peculiarly, our horizons opened up. Just when we thought it wouldn’t, business and working became more personal, even as it became less workplace-based. Unexpected silver linings have glimmered through the clouds.

The new way of getting things done

A long-observed trend – that work is something you do, not somewhere you go – came to fruition rapidly. VARs, SIs, and CSPs had to seize the moment just at a time when doing so became more difficult than ever. I worked with many customers through the height of the pandemic to help them realize opportunities globally, as the market for cloud and hybrid cloud-based solutions has continued to grow.

It’s no surprise that the market has expanded; precisely because the world appeared to be shrinking. Just 18 long months ago we questioned how we would efficiently get workforces transitioning to remote, or home, working. The efficiencies were self-evident and the technology was largely available but the shift was too much of a cultural change; not how things were done.

Now it is exactly how things are done, and organisations are feeling the benefit; lower costs (not least in real estate) greater productivity, and even more inspired and motivated workforces as they were able to address the work/life balance more completely than ever before.

Now we contemplate if we will ever go back, or if we do, how businesses will harness the flexibility of the ‘hybrid office’. This mammoth cultural and societal shift has been something of a revolution. It has also driven the proliferation of global data center requirements and the need to move technology of all types to very remote locations around the world.

We did it together

The VAR, SI and CSP customers I work with have had their work cut out through all this. I thought I’d supply a brief update of the help Viadex has been able to offer as the challenges mounted up.

Viadex Global Partner Services delivered nearly 3,000 global projects into over 30 countries while the pandemic was threatening to close down entire economies. We supported some very interesting projects which showed a true spirt of fortitude and heaps of ingenuity from the customers who identified opportunities where their services could help make a difference https://www.viadex.com/global-supply-update/.

Meanwhile, Brexit hadn’t gone away, neither had the complications it brought to the once-seamless moving of components or configured devices from the United Kingdom into European Union countries in Continental Europe.

Prior to the break-away, we had incorporated Viadex BV in The Netherlands in 2020. Through this entity, we can sell within the EU whilst as acting as IOR for goods being brought in and being able to reclaim import VAT where the goods are being sold on, resulting in VAT not becoming a Cost of Sale on the transaction. Moving slightly further afield, our partners and trade routes into Russia have continued to mature significantly.

Our Mexico entity is supporting a number of European-based and US-based customers operationally, with their local in-country requirements as well as more complicated NOM (Norma Oficial Mexicana) Certification requirements.
Just to round off this global whistle-stop tour; Asia and South East Asia remain frequent trade routes where we support a number of our CSP customers with the delivery of fully-configured data center equipment.

Has it been business-as-usual? Far from it. Unexpected growth during the course of an unforeseen global catastrophe has tested all of us. I just want you to know that the Viadex team is no stranger to the complexities of getting things done in adversity, within complex bureaucracies, and often against understandably reduced lead times.

Whatever you want sorted, wherever you want it to happen, we’ve probably already been there.

Looking forward to seeing you all again, as soon as we’re all able to emerge.

Stay well
Steve