In this vlog, Adam Monks, CEO & Co-Founder of Smartdesc, and James Field, Strategy Director, look back over the main themes in technology within non-profits in 2021, and discuss the key IT challenges that charities will be focussing on in 2022.
You can read the main points of the discussion below:
What have charity customers been working on, and what technology trends have dominated 2021?
- “Unplanned” explosion onto Cloud.
- The move has accelerated cloud adoption.
- A lot of unplanned cloud moves from 2020 have required optimisation and consolidation 2021 – Autopilot and Intune have been priceless.
- Huge shift to hybrid – local working on laptops instead of servers and remote desktops which has really benefitted the employee experience.
- 2021 also shone a big light on security.
How are large charities planning their technology roadmaps for 2022?
- The “Digital Journey” has sped up.
- Foundation layers of cloud platforms like 365 now in place.
- Security will continue to dominate – Cyber Essentials has seen huge adoption.
- Collaboration and use of tools like Teams not just for meetings but also voice and shared files.
- Charities are now starting to use Automation and build simple PowerApps to carry out delivery of services to beneficiaries.
Some technology may seem out of reach or daunting for an organisation with limited IT skills or capacity; how can charities get help with some of this?
- Smartdesc has four core services to cover this – contact us for a free advice & strategy session
- Services should rarely be used in isolation; some charities lack internal IT expertise, but an IT Leadership service can drive the creation of an IT Strategy, and weaves services together to deliver them.
Further information
- An important emerging service is Business Processes – getting rid of those clunky old processes.
- Mapping out their business processes, and identifying possibilities for automation.
- A very recent example at a mental health charity, Smartdesc worked on a manual referrals process that took 2+ hours per patient, and within 4 days had automated it end to end, and given patients a digital portal to engage with the service – it took referral processing down to 15 minutes, and the tools were all based on existing 365, Teams and Power Platform so there was no opex cost whatsoever. Read more here.
If you would like to discuss any of the points raised or if you would like to arrange a complimentary technology review, please contact us to chat with one of our Charity IT Directors.
Smartdesc is an ACEVO Premium Partner, NCVO Trusted Supplier and Charity Finance Group Partner.
