TUC Digital Lab report, August 2021
Major changes are taking place to the IT landscape for companies and organisations. The rise of cloud business solutions and the increasing use of Software as a Service (SaaS) has changed many of the fundamentals of IT infrastructure.
New and more efficient approaches are now available that offer greater scope for collaboration, better resilience, lower cost and improved productivity. The requirement for significant investment on internal server hardware and management has ended, and key applications can increasingly be accessed via an internet browser rather than necessarily needing to install dedicated software on a machine specified for the task.
Most unions have already started on this journey to some degree over recent years. Those who have started earlier or taken more steps often found it easier to adapt rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic. A modernised IT infrastructure allows for much better flexible working, which not only helps during a lockdown, but also allows easier adaption to the new world of hybrid home and office working.
This report, written by Simon Parry of infobo.com in collaboration with the TUC Digital Lab, looks at how and why unions may want to modernise aspects of their IT infrastructure, and covers issues such as migration, security, data protection and productivity which will make up different parts of this journey.