Across the world, 2020 will be remembered as a year of unprecedented challenges and disruption. In our industry, demands placed on mission-critical infrastructure soared, on-site Covid-safe working practices were implemented, and many projects began to fluctuate, with some quickly accelerating and others experiencing long-term delays.
That’s not to say, however, that there aren’t positives to take from the last twelve months. Remote working has helped to reduce carbon emissions, working parents have had more time at home with their immediate families, and the UK has further established itself as a global leader within genomic research, helping to protect the world against the long-term effects of the pandemic.
At EfficiencyIT, we’ve also achieved some great milestones, beginning by playing our part to help tackle the IT skills gap, employing our first two technology apprentices in October 2020. Our award-winning engineering team became government security cleared (SC), we achieved our Constructionline Gold Membership, began our ISO-9001 accreditation process and became ECA certified. And we continued our efforts to champion sustainability, business continuity and energy efficiency, while helping support customers across the IT sector meet and overcome unpredictable challenges.
Addressing the skills gap
A wise person once said: “Tell me and I will forget, teach me and I will remember, involve me and I will learn.” And with these words in mind, we appointed our first two apprentices into the EfficiencyIT apprenticeship scheme. Our new trainee engineers will benefit from valuable on-the-job training, dividing their time between working on-site alongside our highly skilled data centre, IT and software professionals - and of course, studying for their formal qualifications.
As they learn and develop with us, we believe it’s fundamental we instil a culture of challenging the status quo, pushing the boundaries on old ways of doing things to both add value to customers and help them achieve long-term returns on investment. This is the start of an important new chapter for EfficiencyIT, bringing significant benefits for our new trainees as well as our company and customers, and we also hope the move will set an example to the wider IT sector, demonstrating how companies can help address the ever-growing skills gap by investing in the next generation of talent.
Indeed, Microsoft recently reported the gap is costing UK companies £6.1bn annually and could hamper our country’s recovery from the pandemic. So in our way, we are proud to play our part in STEM, to give back and would encourage other critical infrastructure consultancy firms to do likewise.
A secure and certified infrastructure partner
Due to recent contract wins, our engineering team has become UK government security cleared (SC), which is an achievement we’re proud to share. This enables us to work ever more closely with customers in the government and defence sectors, and with other sensitive organisations who rely on resilient digital infrastructure to protect against front-line threats across the world.
Our mission-critical engineering and services team are now able deploy market-leading infrastructure solutions within SC sites, and are trusted to work on government projects with delicacy and discretion. It also helps to illustrate to our wider customer base the level of trust they can confidently place in our experts and best-in-class technology partners.
ECA and Constructionline Gold accredited
Another key milestone was the achievement of our Constructionline Gold certification, which means we can increase the speed at which we engage with clients, while offering them greater peace of mind in their decision to appoint us. Here our business was assessed across a wide range of areas, including our commitment to environmental management; quality management; equal opportunities; and anti-bribery and corruption policies. This accreditation verifies our business beyond PAS 91 and Common Assessment Standard level, while building in enhanced validation checks thanks to such a rigorous prequalification process.
Later in the year EfficiencyIT also became members of Electrical Contractors Association (ECA), which validated the high standards of electrical competencies and knowledge within our organisation. These enhanced checks all underpin our customer-focussed commitments to due diligence, compliance and delivering high-quality critical infrastructure solutions.
Striving for efficiency and sustainability through disruption
There’s no ignoring the fact that when it comes to data centres, energy efficiency and sustainability remained top of the agenda in 2020. A new report from our key infrastructure partner, Schneider Electric and analyst 451 Research found that 97% of colocation providers’ customers are asking for contractual sustainability commitments, showing how important it will be for organisations across the sector to embed sustainable actions within their businesses.
Going into 2021, we believe that sustainability will accelerate even further, and we’ll play our part in helping customers to drive energy efficiency across their organisations and providing consultancy that helps to guide and change perspectives – rather than tick procurement boxes.
We are no strangers to sustainability and we pride ourselves on championing technology that benefits customers and the planet in equal measure, so this year we’ll continue to challenge the status quo in our efforts to help end-users achieve better long-term outcomes; whether that’s by recommending the downsizing of a UPS, questioning the wisdom of one-size-fits-all data centre solutions, or by shouting about the benefits of next-generation data centre infrastructure management (DCIM), today our mission is to improve customer efficiency through disruptive technologies.
We’ll continue to challenge what’s acceptable versus what’s achievable within traditional data centres and IT infrastructures, placing efficiency at the heart of everything we do, and we hope you’ll be right there with us.
#Bornefficient
About EfficiencyIT
Specialising in edge computing environments, cloud transformation and mission-critical IT solutions, EfficiencyIT (EIT) was borne from the ideals of a like-minded group of individuals who saw the data centre and IT landscape changing dramatically. Today our customers are responsible for some of the most critical technology operations in the world and our mission is to empower them to innovate and to relentlessly support their business objectives by underpinning them with efficient, forward-thinking, digital infrastructure.
Partnered with Schneider Electric, Microsoft, Mimecast and Cisco, we continue to challenge the status quo of what is acceptable versus what is achievable, within traditional data centre and IT infrastructures. #BornEfficient
