The 2020 Year in Review
Where We’ve Been. Where We’re Going

2020 Year in Review: Where We’ve Been. Where We’re Going

2020: Looking Back

2020 was obviously a tumultuous year. I sincerely hope you and your family remained safe and healthy. While I could spend an entire series writing about the pandemic, political strife, or racial tensions, this post will focus on CSP and changing technology trends we witnessed in the past year.

Specifically, I will discuss the following three takeaways from 2020:

• Massive Cloud Growth
• Increased New Client Acquisition
• Higher Demand for Collaboration

Massive Cloud Growth

The biggest trend we saw in 2020 was an acceleration in companies shifting their workloads to the cloud. With offices closing and workers going remote, it makes sense that the momentum towards the cloud would increase. Our results were staggering. Depending on the specific solution, we saw our year-over-year growth in cloud technologies increase by anywhere from 50 to 300 percent. The cloud allows for simple access from any device, anywhere, at any time. Thus, many companies leaned into this transformational platform during the pandemic.

Increased New Client Acquisition

Tighter financial constraints and changing work environments forced a lot of people to reconsider how they approach technology. Even if they had previously been slow to adapt, companies realized they needed either internal teams or technology partners that could help navigate these changes. From cloud integrations to enhanced security needs, to simplifying IT operations, we found many companies had the need for CSP’s services. As such, we had an extremely strong year in attracting new clients to partner with CSP. Thanks and welcome aboard to our new clients!

Higher Demand for Collaboration

Distributed and remote workforces accelerated the demand for enhanced corporate collaboration solutions. For example, hosted voice, video conferencing, and document management solutions all saw very high demand. Our push towards hosted voice continued as workers could seamlessly take his or her phone home, leverage a soft-phone, or use an application on a smartphone to maintain voice communications. Usage of Microsoft Teams grew exponentially as a way for companies to hold virtual meetings. Finally, both Teams and Dropbox Business were both very popular for their document management features.

2021: What Lies Ahead?

As we turn the page to 2021, we all yearn for a return to normalcy. However, strictly from a technology standpoint, I fully believe some of the changes are here to stay. As businesses witnessed the power of a cloud-centric infrastructure, I am confident the foundation is here to stay. Even if we move beyond a global pandemic, there are plenty of other factors that make the cloud an attractive platform.

Thus, moving forward, I believe we will see the following three trends emerge:

• Continued Cloud Adoption
• Re-Focus on Security
• Simplification of IT Management

Continued Cloud Adoption

The benefits of the cloud have not changed, but instead, were highlighted by life in a pandemic. These benefits – increased performance, anywhere access, scalability, heightened security – will remain, even after the pandemic subsides. Thus, I am confident we will continue to see even more companies pivot their workloads to the cloud.

Re-Focus on Security

While there were plenty of other stories to keep the news-cycle consumed in 2020, the IT security threats have not been diminished. In fact, the shift to remote workers and cloud-based platforms have heightened the need to increase security. As the Solarwinds breach at the end of 2020 showed, the hackers are continuing to exploit our most sensitive data. We believe this trend will increase throughout the year.

Simplification of IT Management

As more people moved to a remote setting, we saw IT departments try to keep up with how to manage these users. Solutions such as mobile device managers – many which had been around for a while – took off in popularity. Furthermore, as companies moved their infrastructure to the cloud, I heard more people ask: Do I really need a classic active directory environment? Both these reasons lead us to see a lot of interest in solutions such as Microsoft Intune. It’s my belief that this interest will shift into large growth in this segment in 2021.

As we move into 2021, it’s also important to remember what hasn’t changed at CSP: our vision, our approach, and our people. We’re still committed to leaving a positive, lasting impact on our people, our clients, and our community. Equally as important, we still hold our family values and have an unwavering commitment to delivering a premier customer service experience. While the technology may change, who we are will remain consistent.

Thanks and cheers to 2021!