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On this platform, we speak a lot about facilitating your business growth. From technology to strategies, to productivity hacks to culture – we cover a lot! Today's article is a little different, we want to open the doors to the "backend", and expose our processes, our people, and what we are doing to ensure those who partner with us are getting the best from us.

Being in the business of providing technology solutions to other businesses, we recognise that our clients success is ultimately ours. Our best stories are those told by our customers, not by us. Because of this, we believe that if we double down our focus on helping our clients business’ grow, ultimately, we will grow too.

Curious for a behind the scenes look? Let's get into it!

Sometimes, the tried and true gets tired, outdated, and inefficient.

Recently, we have come to this conclusion with our account management monthly client reporting model, and decided to leverage the power of dashboards to shave countless hours off our reporting model, provide increased transparency, and allow us to give more value to our clients during our monthly meetings.... And least we forget, reduce our environmental footprint!

Curious to get an inside glimpse as to how we’re moving to a paperless reporting system? Here’s the inside scoop!

Over at the Harvard Business Review, a fascinating article which points out (in an almost Nietzschean fashion with the two-way street of the abyss) that the impact of technology in the workplace doesn’t just change the way people get things done, it also influences the way in which businesses are managed and governed.

Once said, the claim makes perfect sense, in the way that pointing out the obvious makes for a ‘duh, why didn’t I think of that’. It also immediately begs the question of how the cloud is changing management in today’s businesses. And, of course the writer Quentin Hardy goes on to point out just exactly that (I’ll get to that in a minute).

What all know is that the cloud is pervasive today. Regardless of business type or size, the cloud plays anything from a small role to an all-encompassing one. For most companies, there’s also a simple rule: the more cloud, the better. After all, flexibility, capital cost reduction, the availability of ‘high technology’ at low prices are all features and benefits with universal appeal.

Seems almost crazy, but the era of ‘serverless architecture’ is upon us. It’s a continuation of the availability of utility cloud computing and it matters to most businesses because it means you can develop and operate your services without ever worrying about operating systems or underlying hardware. All you need to do is produce the code and run it.

On what, you rightly ask? The short answer is ‘containers’.

Serverless computing is an execution model in which your cloud provider dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources (those machines would be the actual ‘servers’ – but they have nothing to do with you, certainly not in a physical sense: they are completely abstracted away from the end user). Pricing is based on the amount of resources consumed by your application, rather than on pre-purchased capacity. In other words, serverless consumption models are ‘on demand’ utility computing.

Seriously, rooms full of black boxes with little blinking lights is just so nineties.

While that might sound a lot like a fashion statement, the problem isn’t with appearances. Instead, it is costs. Flexibility. Security and resilience. Management overhead. Hassle. And that’s why the time has never been better for emptying out the server room and putting all those boxes into the cloud. A bonus: how much space will this (relatively simple) action free up…and what will you do with it?

The cloud, these days, is setting the standard for the infrastructure every company needs to run its business. The old way of buying hardware, along with the attendant hassles of configuring and then managing it, belong in the past because it’s expensive. It’s also clunky and times change fast, while ‘bought’ hardware might as well have a use-by date on it (tired of constant refreshes which make three years go by in the blink of an eye?).

Service Levels Agreements are everywhere, from Energy Companies to Pizza Delivery.  For consumers it’s things like “delivered in 30 minutes”, or “the best nights’ sleep you’ve ever had”.  For businesses it’s measured in response times, uptime or resolutions times – and setting these expectations is important! They allow both you and your customers to know when you are performing, and when there is work to be done to meet expectation.  

At Lancom we have set strong SLA’s that we are proud of, so we want to give you a behind the scenes peak at what they are!  

Before we dive in, we want to bring up an important 'extra', which is crucial in the success of implementing SLA's – the Communication Level Agreement.  What's often missing is the discussion around the discussion!  When and how will you communicate with your customer, especially in their times of need.  The SLA is a great document, but it lives in the past.  You only go to it after the fact.  SLA’s always talk about mean time between failure, business hours response times and defect rates.  And why do they always have a little star? 

One thing we know for sure, is that we are incredibly fortunate to have an amazing, talented, collaborative team here at Lancom. 

From the outset, it may look like it has been a fluke, attracting the right people to come to together – however, I assure you this is no accident! The culture we have developed to bring together such people has been carefully cultivated, and nurtured.  

This year Lancom is turning  30 years old, and though we have always had a sense of who we are as a company, and as individuals, we have taken this opportunity to reflect and solidify these thoughts. 

And we wanted to share where we are at, with you. 

By now, there’s no need to point out how much data is generated daily by just about every business there is. But despite this obvious reality, most businesses don’t really use that data beyond its immediate initial purpose. By that, I mean your email is only useful ‘in the instant’. Once you’ve completed the task, it’s forgotten. Today’s sales figures might be rolled into a weekly or monthly report, but after that, it’s history (except maybe again at year-end). The logs and reports generated by monitoring equipment often do nothing unless they throw up an anomaly. 

Isn’t it about time you did …something… with all that data? After all, ‘data is the new oil’, and contained in it could be the seeds of innovation or, dare I say it, revolution. 

But how? 

A critical component of any team, is communication. 

And when it comes to developing customised software applications, middleware integrations, apps or anything in the software development world, it is critical to be able to communicate with your team effectively, to ensure the desired outcome is reached, in the shortest timeframe possible.  

Known for being less vocal, developers will often rely on stakeholders to ensure an effective communication process in a project or ongoing relationship. This is where the challenge comes in. Often, stakeholders won’t necessarily know or take for granted “obvious” information that developers may not be aware of, adding complexity and mutual frustrations to a project – which ultimately reads as cost. 

When it comes to the cloud, the biggest name is Amazon Web Services (AWS) which commands more market share than the next four competitors combined. Not bad for a bookseller! So, when you’re looking at migrating infrastructure to the cloud, and there are many good reasons to do just that, AWS is probably one of the best available options.

Those who are considering migration need to know just exactly what is involved. There are challenges and issues which must be noted and handled to ensure a smooth transition to either a complete ‘in the cloud’ setup, or the more common hybrid arrangement, where some infrastructure remains on-premise and some is moved to AWS.