Reflecting and forecasting

Welcome to our first newsletter for 2024: reflecting and forecasting!

As we bid farewell to an eventful 2023 and step into the new year, we'd like to take a moment to reflect on our shared journey. Last year presented us with a unique set of challenges, especially with the rapid rise of GenAI. Yet, these hurdles have also fostered innovation, resilience, and growth. As we navigate through 2024, we remain committed to providing you with valuable insights into the dynamic world of IT.

In this edition, we will share some of our most popular content from the year and insights for the year ahead, so you can get ahead in 2024.

Highlights

IT Pioneer Summit: in November we hosted our virtual summit, which offered attendees the chance to learn about the latest trends, future predictions, and innovative solutions that are shaping the IT landscape. From the zero-touch service desk to cyber resilience and the tech talent maze, our expert speakers covered a wide range of topics to help organisations thrive. Catch up on-demand.

Launch of The Edge: we were pleased to launch our thought leadership community, providing IT Leaders with the latest insights, best practices, and expert advice. Join our community for free to receive our quarterly eBook.

Webinar: Chat GPT & Generative AI, the revolution begins: ChatGPT and Generative AI hit the headlines last year and they continue to makes waves in the market by revolutionising processes and with their potential to transform businesses across industries. However, you may have questions around how they can be used in your organisation, the potential use cases and impact, and what considerations need to be taken into account. Watch our on-demand webinar to learn more.

Key articles

Cloud repatriation - are your IT workloads in the best place?: Cloud repatriation, the act of moving workloads back from the public cloud to on-premises or third-party data centres, is a growing trend among businesses, especially large enterprises. While public cloud offers scalability and cost-effectiveness in certain scenarios, reports indicate savings between 30% and 50% on repatriated workloads. However, navigating this complex landscape requires expertise and understanding. Read more.

SIAM: revolutionising multi-supplier IT environments: SIAM, or Service Integration and Management, is a game-changer for businesses operating in multi-vendor IT environments. This management methodology ensures collaboration, transparency, and value delivery across multiple service providers. The benefits are compelling - improved service quality, cost optimisation, enhanced governance, and scalability. However, adopting SIAM comes with its challenges such as building a business case, managing cultural change, navigating existing contracts, and tooling automation. Read more.

From Copilot to Viva, Microsoft unveils a new era of productivity: Microsoft has unveiled a suite of enhancements designed to elevate productivity and streamline collaboration. Adobe Acrobat now seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Teams, allowing the effortless opening and annotation of PDFs. Furthermore, Teams has enhanced its customisability, offering users the ability to dictate the download location of files and initiate group chats with distribution and security groups. The advent of Viva Engage marks a new chapter in shared experiences and goal tracking, while Microsoft Copilot, an AI-powered tool, is now at your service in Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Lastly, Bing Chat Enterprise, a chat feature powered by AI, is now available on Bing via Edge, providing a more interactive search experience. Read more.

The legal shake-up: how generative AI is changing the game: The legal landscape is undergoing a profound transformation, courtesy of generative AI. Start-ups such as Harvey, with the backing of OpenAI and Sequoia, are leveraging this technology to automate a spectrum of legal services, including contract drafting and legal counsel. This revolutionary technology even holds the potential to automate the entirety of the legal process, from dispute resolution to issuing court judgments. Lord Vos anticipates that by the mid-2020s, generative AI could supersede human lawyers in personal injury cases. This seismic shift signals that lawyers and law firms must adapt to the rise of generative AI, or risk market consolidation. Read more.

Key Content

Fact sheet: IT Service Desk: In today's dynamic business landscape, ensuring a seamless and efficient IT service desk operation is more crucial than ever. Our fact sheet looks at why organisations are increasingly outsourcing their IT service desk and the benefits of this approach.

Fact sheet: IT Outsourcing: Businesses are continually seeking ways to stay competitive and efficient, and one strategy that continues to grow in popularity is outsourcing IT to an external provider. In our fact sheet, we outline the main benefits of outsourcing to an external provider and how Advanced can help you.

Fact sheet: Workplace Services: Workplace services, notably Microsoft 365, Identity & Access Management (IAM), and device management, play a crucial role for all organisations. Here we discuss how we can help modernise, secure, and optimise your EUC environment, building and managing a modern solution to drive your organisation forward.

Upcoming

You may have seen our recent Business Trends Report, which leveraged the views of 6,605 UK decision-makers to showcase the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities?from a range of sectors. These decision makers surveyed included around 1500 IT Leaders,?who play a pivotal role in shaping the?technological advancements and digital transformations within their respective organisations.

With that in mind, we’ll soon be launching our 2023/24?report, 'IT Leaders in the Eye of the Storm'?showcasing their unique perspective on the likes of?cyber security, AI, outsourcing, barriers to change and more. If you are?an IT Leader looking to source actionable insights from the latest business trends data, be one of the first to receive this report by pre-registering here.

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