Year in Review: Paul Reames – the year that changed communication

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In a year that none of us are likely to forget in a hurry, there has been the occasional reason to be positive. The UK’s first lockdown in March gave many of us some valuable time at home with our families, and encouraged many of us to re-evaluate our daily routines and our work-life balance.

Since March, so many of us have questioned the way that we work, live and how often we travel unnecessarily. Many business leaders have used this as an opportunity to weigh up the need for expensive office space or whether they could continue to let their teams work remotely beyond COVID-19. However, as the year draws to a close and the pandemic continues to impact many areas of our lives, the latest news about a vaccine offers at least some light at the end of the tunnel.

Will we return to the way things were before March this year? In my opinion, I don’t think we will. I think the pandemic has been a catalyst for permanent change in the way that we work and communicate. As a communications provider, Bluecube has been promoting the benefits of flexible working for quite a few years now, and 2020 made our job a whole lot easier.

Our teams and colleagues have been given a true taste of flexible working and I think many are now hungry for more of the same. While many companies will decide that the office has a long-term purpose as a central hub for their teams to meet, it’s likely that many businesses will choose to downsize their office space and offer their teams continued flexibility to work remotely. As a cloud communications provider, that can only mean a very busy couple of years ahead for Bluecube.

Apart from the impact of the pandemic, it has been a fairly routine year for the team here at Bluecube – which is something I feel very grateful for. We’ve grown our customer base significantly and we hosted our annual event for businesses, but in true 2020 fashion, it was held virtually. What began as a conversation with the University of Lincoln and some other leading local businesses became a two-day webinar offering support and advice to businesses struggling to adapt to a new way of working called ‘Business Reimagined’. The event was a huge success and was hosted by BBC presenter and Metro technology journalist, Lucy Hedges with over 300 participants across the two days.

In August, we launched a fantastic new UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) solution, Wildix. Wildix is a communications platform that offers telephony, chat, file sharing, video calling and conferencing and has provided companies with the kind of flexibility that they’ve needed to tackle this past year. It’s been an incredibly successful addition to our product portfolio, we fully expect Wildix to be a big driver for our success in 2021.

Personally, I’m looking forward to the new year and a return to some form of normality, even though I think there will be a new kind of normal. I can see the travel industry making a huge recovery when restrictions are lifted as we all take a well-deserved break, and I’m sincerely hoping to see the High Street make a recovery. Let’s be honest, we’re all fed up with shopping online! I for one am looking forward to getting out there and supporting our local independent retailers.

Have a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year from all at Bluecube.