Ask Andrew: The forecast for 2023

  • Agile Working
  • Business Continuity
  • Company Culture
  • Productivity
  • The Office
Ask Andrew: The forecast for 2023

As we settle back into the office, we asked CEO Andrew Try to reflect on 2022 and talk us through predictions for the year ahead.

2022 can be best described as a discombobulation. So much of what we all considered normal was already out of kilter, and whilst this time last year I expected it to be a year of returning to norms, I think few predicted the rollercoaster of influences that affected work, personal, national and international sentiment.

As a business owner and manager, trying to forecast and predict in normal circumstances is hard and through 2022 it was harder still. However, sticking to key strategic anchors of creative, energetic people with a passion for being the best, challenging the status quo and building a better future' served us well at ComXo.

Here are my top 3 headwinds that we navigated as a business last year:

  1. Staff wellbeing

With a workforce that is fully hybrid, the business focus was to support the physical and mental health of our entire team, including those we could no longer see. ComXo is a boutique specialist delivering high service levels and market leading innovation, and for this a strong culture is required. Investment went into flexible shift patterns, "come into the office" events, wellbeing packages, parties , training and development, video team culture, resident mental health practitioners, and my weekly CEO video check in.

  • Change in workforce and workplace utilisation for clients.

As a workplace service partner to some of the largest professional service firms in the world, 2022 was uniquely challenging. The WFH (Work from Home) to WFO (Work from Office) ratio was difficult to forecast as "new normal" working practices evolved rapidly throughout the year. The spring saw the rebound from Covid and lockdown and war in Ukraine. The summer had the extra Jubilee bank holiday and 40C temperatures. In Autumn we mourned the death of the Queen, whilst numerous prime ministers came and went. Finally, Christmas was marred by strikes. How could we forecast this, and what normal would look like?

  • Inflationary forces, cost of living and the focus on value delivery.

Retaining and incentivising our dedicated and experienced teams has been essential. Searching for more value for customers as prices had to go up was, and remains, our focus. We have been helped by a tight labour market making customers look to outsource as an answer to their own staff troubles, but most importantly it's our continued effort to make ComXo a great place to work. We delivered 9 new team induction groups last year compared to an average of 5 per year, and our staff turnover is around 10% less than industry average which I'm very proud of.

This year what are my predictions?

It is impossible to second guess the macro except to say that complexity, global shock, fast moving trends and fluidity will continue to dominate. The companies that have the most flexible structures and elastic outlooks will benefit; those trying to hang on to the past will not. As the saying goes "When the big waves rain down upon you, the person who's smiling is the surfer!".

From the ComXo standpoint, creating flexible workplace and workforce environments is about the ability to "Centralise, Optimise and Virtualise". Central, virtualised services sitting on digital platforms, enabling AI and delivering data driven insight saves lots of money, increases workforce productivity and transforms client experience. As a business that thrives on managing complex challenges and streamlining them for a great result, we will continue to facilitate our customers on this journey, whatever 2023 and beyond throws at us.

Written by
Amanda

Are legal chat bots ready to chat?

  • Agile Working
  • Business Continuity
  • Client Experience
  • Company Culture
  • Productivity
  • The Office
  • Virtual Meetings
Are legal chat bots ready to chat?

With talk of "post-pandemic challenges" now feeling passé , and businesses re-focusing on the longer term future, legal firms are looking to build efficiencies into sustainable hybrid work processes, and ways to further enhance and develop their client experience for competitive advantage.

The use of "lawtech" including AI and chatbots has been hyped over recent years as the solution to all problems, with chatbots in particular seen as the "quick fix, easy to scale, friendly face of Artificial Intelligence".

Some predictions have estimated that more than 85% of customer interactions will NOT include a human being in the legal sector. But we ask the question:

"Are you ready to hand over your valued customers to a client experience which is totally hands-off?"

Are legal chatbots ready to chat e-book cover

Are you ready to hand over your valued customers to a client experience which is totally hands-off?

This insight, written by conversational intelligence expert Andrew Moorhouse, takes a look at balancing the risk of losing human interaction, alongside the reward of combining better tech and processes for a highly personalised managed service.

In this insight you'll find:

  • Insights from over 10,000 conversations across sectors
  • Analysis of call volumes and qualified leads for the legal sector
  • How to balance risk and reward when introducing AI technology
Written by
Amanda

RECESSION: How real are the risks?

  • Business Continuity
  • Outsourcing
  • Solution
  • The Office
RECESSION: How real are the risks?

Recession and the risk of ongoing uncertainty is high on the list of business challenges right now. 

The last recession in 2008 saw a calamitous and sudden capitulation of capital markets; was a disaster akin to a tornado … sudden and unplanned.  The aftermath saw business cut hard and fast in reaction to it.  This time things feel more like a drought.  We know we are already in it, and we can feel the economic cogs moving slowly but with potentially devastating consequences.  

The headwinds are many: higher prices, supply problems, war, post-pandemic malaise.  Businesses however will be asking the same questions:  how do I cut costs, become more efficient, become less people dependent, how do I remain good value for my customers… how do I protect my stakeholders? How do I keep my job?

In 2008 ComXo experienced the first wave of office support outsourcing in professional services.  We saw the demand for our technologies and managed services increase, as we pivoted to meet demand for business transformation, helping to drive down costs. 

This time we expect even greater demand. 

 The combination of Brexit and the pandemic have changed so many contributing factors that this upcoming financial period is far harder to predict, with risks across a number of areas. The physical office is being used differently, hybrid work has evolved, data is more abundant and the balance in employee engagement has shifted.  The new corporate world is driven by business service personalisation, on demand access 24/7 to integrated services, insight-driven facilities management, self-service, intelligent triage, and outcome driven KPI’s.  Those that have not yet benefited from the technology dividend and business continuity benefits of support solutions, are likely to embrace it, or risk being out-manoeuvred by their competitors. 

 Our professional service customers such as PWC are using ComXo outsourced business services to lead the charge of reimagined client experience, cost rationalisation and new generation business continuity.  Our legal and financial customers are following service roadmaps to do the same.  It is clear to see from our clients’ financial results that this approach works now, and for the future of a successfully functioning enterprise.

 Want to find out more? Talk to our team for insights and case studies that might help your planning.

Written by
Amanda

Hybrid Working-Making it a success for your law firm

  • Agile Working
  • Business Continuity
  • Client Experience
  • Company Culture
  • Productivity
  • The Office
  • Virtual Meetings
Hybrid Working-Making it a success for your law firm

The change-averse legal sector has slowly been moving towards digitisation for years. However, since the global pandemic and the accompanying government-enforced lockdowns, the sector has been forced to review their working habits and embrace remote working.

As the world enters "the new normal", and Freedom Day in the UK seems a long way behind us, offices are reopening, and businesses are accommodating a blend of home and office working: the hybrid-working model.

Research has found that a large proportion of employees expect a level of "hybrid" working in the future - with just under half wanting to work from the office for 3 days or fewer each week. Additionally, results also found that over half of employees now believe the office to be unnecessary, with these numbers increasing since the first lockdown.

The legal sector needs to understand what's happening on the ground to ensure they are attracting new talent, providing a competitive working environment for staff, and proactively identifying concerns or issues amongst their employees - to provide the best experience to their teams.

Working in partnership with CBRE and CTS, we've provided a guide to help you do just that.

In this guide, we cover:

  • Why you should embrace hybrid working
  • The benefits of a hybrid working model
  • What employees want from hybrid working
  • What you should consider when developing your hybrid working strategy
Designing-a-Successful-Hybrid-Working-Strategy

Designing a successful hybrid working strategy: The best of both worlds

Complete your details below to download our free Hybrid Working e-book, with access to our ‘Finger on the pulse’ webinar on how to measure success.

Written by
Amanda

Maintaining business continuity during a cyber attack

  • Business Continuity
  • Outsourcing
  • Solution
  • The Office
Maintaining business continuity during a cyber attack

CYBER ATTACKS - FIGHTING THE INVISIBLE ENEMY

When it comes to Risk and Business Continuity the traditional focus on fire, flood and theft has now been replaced with a less visible, but highly destructive threat in the form of cyber-crime, viruses and attacks on business's data and I.T. environments.

Five years ago almost every business had their traditional IT systems and programs sitting separately from their communication technologies - such as their PBX's, conference calls, outbound and inbound phone lines. Today it is more likely that these services sit within the traditional IT infrastructure. On paper this offers huge benefits but has one major flaw; when a cyber-attack hits, it's no longer just internet access, computers and servers that are compromised. All communication channels are vulnerable. In many situations the only option is to go dark and take everything off-line, resulting in no emails, no internet access, no incoming or outgoing phone calls, no conference calls with clients. A business's ability to communicate internally with its own employees, and with the outside world is significantly impacted.

BUSINESS CONTINUITY DURING CYBER ATTACK

As specialists in integrated communications and infrastructure for some of the top firms in The City, managing their global communications, we have supported firms through potentially catastrophic cyber attacks.

Here are our top ten tips on maintaining business should you be subject to cyber attacks or data breaches:

1. Protect your brand at all costs. Perception is reality.

It is unacceptable for a customer focused firm to be unavailable for any length of time.
Being able to demonstrate that regardless of the situation, you are open for business and capable of maintaining high service levels builds trust, customer loyalty and professional respect.

2. Enable your teams to focus on the crisis.

When a crisis hits, you will require total focus, concentrated effort and coordinated teamwork to survive. Create space and mitigate risk by ring-fencing the front line experience. Triaging internal services, information updates and escalation requests engenders an atmosphere of uninterrupted calm and control, and puts you back on the front foot.

3. Provide a serviced virtual meeting place for stakeholders

Continuous communication is the single most important factor during a crisis. An easy-to-use voice conference room that can be accessed at any time is key. A managed audio conferencing service can facilitate requests to ensure agility and fluidity as the situation develops.

4. Keep your staff informed. Duty of care is essential

Defined, well-rehearsed communication channels minimise confusion and insecurity amongst stakeholders and staff. It is vital to have access to up-to-date stakeholder and staff contact lists for consistent communications (e.g. text, email, voice, hotline).
These comms can be invoked through a managed service in the cloud.

5. Ensure access to your knowledge asset

Having an external switchboard provider that understands your processes could enable you to maintain access to key information and business services even during a crisis, ensuring ongoing efficiency and information flow

6. Keep your IT help desk functioning 24/7

Minimising confusion as a crisis unfolds is vital. Getting and keeping key IT capability up and working is a pivotal step to achieve this. Ensuring clear lines open to your IT help desk gives your workforce assurance that the situation is under control. Using a triage capability to answer calls and service requests; fact find, prioritise and escalate - enabling your own IT staff to focus on the higher level problems.

7. Provide your staff with the right tools for remote working

By providing alternative, company sanctioned and network independent communication tools, staff can stay productive rather than having to second guess
the company's risk, security or compliance regime. A BYOD (bring-your-own-device) technology that's simple to use and allows easy billing will encourage staff to continue communicating.

8. Think Global

For global corporates a cyber-attack could mean that all world-wide communication becomes disrupted. Do you have a global resilience plan in place for communication? Is it tested around your key risks and invoked on a regular basis?

9. Create strong supply chain relationships

When a crisis hits, relationships with key operational suppliers become even more important. Maintaining strong connections with the right people in these organisations will help ensure your problem is prioritised. Share your BCP plans with your supply chain and include them in your scenario planning.

10. Protect new business opportunities.

Industry statistics show that up to 55% of switchboard calls to professionals service firms are existing or new business calls. A crisis hits customer confidence and keeping lines open to answer questions, escalate requests or give advice will ensure your customers do not seek out new suppliers

Cyber security is now considered a vital part of any business continuity plan, helping keep the threat minimised with proactive solutions. If it's something you’re considering and would like some guidance talk to our team.

Written by
Amanda

Prepare for the worst and deliver the best

  • Agile Working
  • Business Continuity
  • Company Culture
  • Outsourcing
  • Solution
Prepare for the worst and deliver the best

In March 2020 I returned to work from my honeymoon in Australia, well and truly still in holiday mode. Given the extent of Australian news coverage at the time I boarded my flight aware of little more than "There's a toilet roll shortage". I was fairly oblivious as to what faced me upon my return to the office.

Expecting this toilet roll emergency to blow over while I tortured everyone with holiday pictures, I was ushered into our boardroom and given a pandemic reality check. I was asked to prepare for our offices to close and get ready to support all of our clients as they faced the same challenge.

So how do you move over 1 million calls and 70 Virtual Switchboard staff to a remote working environment, and continue to achieve an industry leading service level, with 95% of calls answered in 3 rings? We were of course apprehensive, but we found that our business continuity planning had left us well prepared.

Without giving away the ComXo crown jewels, here's my 3 key recommendations to enable your organisation to prepare for the worst in order to consistently deliver the best:

 Plan and TEST your BCP measures constantly.

  • For the past 5 years, ComXo has had a unit of remote working operators logged in ready to support calls in the event there was a crisis with the office.
  • This team of operators had tested our tech, software and logistics ready for a wider scale rollout of remote working.
  • Our disaster recovery site is regularly tested on a scheduled and unscheduled basis.

Look after your people

  • Rather than increase operator workload, we introduced more team huddles, 1-2-1s, training time and regular "check ins" to ensure the team were coping with the pandemic. Parents were given some extra, much needed TLC.
  • The business took a VERY open stance to the uncertainty of the future and the roles we would all need to play in order to ensure that ComXo and our clients prospered during this period.
  • Educating our staff on "The grief curve" allowed teams to meet, discuss and share experiences.
  • The Zoom Christmas cocktail party and online bake off/pizza making competitions kept up team spirit. These were planned sensitively, especially once it became clear that the pandemic was going to loom for a substantial period of time, and we were conscious of Zoom fatigue.

In return, our indomitable staff responded in kind with sickness and absence levels dropping to next to zero!

Our service levels actually increased to 97.7% of calls answered within 3 rings and adverse feedback dropped to an all-time low.

Understand your true capacity

  • If the workload demand of your team regularly exceeds 80% of their maximum work rate, it's possible you are heading for burnout and staff churn. Look to schedule at least 30% capacity for breathing room, shrinkage, creativity and sudden spikes in workload.
  • Diversify your workforce: working with parents, students and full time professionals to align their wants and needs with your own workload forecast is a powerful thing.
  • Recruit ahead of the curve - if you wait until you need the staff, you are already too late.
  • If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. Understand the scientific equation that predicts your working capacity. If you don't have the tech, you can do this by simply and consistently checking in with your team and asking "Hey, on a scale of 1 - 10 how busy have you been this month?"

Ultimately, we have been very lucky that our clientele have had a mostly prosperous two years and we are proud to have been able to support them on this journey. Looking back, what would I change about ComXo's approach to the pandemic? Not a lot. But on a personal note, maybe I would have invested in some more toilet roll when I landed back in England. They weren't joking about that part.

Written by
Amanda

The "Hybrid working" model

  • Agile Working
  • Business Continuity
  • Productivity
  • The Office
  • Virtual Meetings
The

The new phrase I am hearing from COO's in Law Firms is 'Hybrid Working'.

Firms are now forecasting and modeling how offices will be used post crisis. Recent research of office workers across 10 countries had 72% say that they wanted to remain home working for 2 days a week post Covid and those spending 3-4 days at home were 15% more satisfied with their job than those who went into work every day.

This Hybrid of workplace and homework will throw up some interesting challenges: for instance, how to manage desk allocation and the forecast increase in meeting room space that will be required to enable the continuation of the Zoom/Teams driven productivity we have all experienced.

Over the past 6 months our R&D teams have been working on a number of pilots and workforce roll outs which signpost what I believe will become the norm.

Here are a few insights:

  • Employees will want to match their environment to the work that needs to be achieved.

For instance super quiet space for important "set piece" chunks of work. That may be your home but equally if you have a house full of toddlers or it's during the school holidays then the office will be preferable.

  • Maximizing the space you have by making it easy for people to book.

A Desk booking project we are working on managing 3000 desks and 500 meeting rooms has demonstrated the advantages of a 24 hour "Maitre D" function sitting above the automated self-serve technology that enables quick cancellation, complex multi bookings, integration into desk delivered catering and instant access to key business services. This "restauranting" of space has smoothed over the rigidity of the technologies employed and maximized the usability of a smaller space for their more agile workforce.

  • Seeing the office as a place to meet, socialise and create not just a place where you have to turn up every day to do your work.

A number of our clients have used the Pandemic to radically re-function their existing workspace creating zones that foster creativity, community and wellbeing.

The booking and management of these new areas are where we have been investing in the technologies, people and processes that drive their efficient use.

The office is not dead, in fact, some of our customers are committing to more space not less. With the prospect of life retuning to more recognizable norms I see more creative, flexible and enjoyable use of the office.

Let's face it, the minute we don't have to go there any more we will certainly want to go there more often.

Written by
Amanda

The Impact of Cyber Attacks

  • Business Continuity
The Impact of Cyber Attacks

The "Wannacry" and "Petya" cyber attacks of June 2017 had a real and damaging effects on businesses, small and large. Companies didn't just lose access to their data but lost all internal and external communication.

The impact of such a communication "blackout" can be catastrophic.

Customers can't get through

Maersk, the world's largest shipping business responsible for transporting 15% of global seaborne freight, confirmed their subsidiary APM Terminalshad been crippled by the attack. APM's website went down, phones at headquarters and offices around Europe went unanswered.

"It was frankly quite a shocking experience. Your email goes down, all of your address system. We ended up having to use WhattsApp on our private phones". -Soren Skou, Ma-ersk CEO-FT.com

Staff Can't work

Britain's WPP, the world's biggest advertising company confirmed it was a victim of the attack. According to one employee "We were told to turn our computers off straight away and not to use the WiFi or servers. Most people just left the building",

"Employees access to emails and documents severely curtailed in what insiders have called a disaster". - FT.com

Productivity grinds to a halt

Production was halted at Cadbury factory during the attack

Bieiersdorf AG, the german maker of Nivea cosmetics experienced 5 to 10 days of shipping and production delays after its computers and communications froze.

"Beiersdorf AG said Petya cost 35 million euros in first-half sales. The company halted production in 17 plants"

Revenue suffers

Shares in Reckitt Benckiser fell as the group warned of falling revenues following the Petya attack.

Beiersdorf AG blamed the attack for a shortfall in its half-year financial results.

Mondalez, formerly known as Kraft and the world's second largest confectionery company reported a 5% drop in quarterly sales, blaming shipping and invoicing delays caused by the attack.

FedEx said it would have a "material" effect on its full-year results.

Written by
Amanda