Mike Rowland here, Office 365 Architect. I helped launch our occasional series #CultureConnections and now handing the baton to …
Me, Andy Nicholls, Office 365 Consultant responsible for defining and delivering tailored Office365 solutions. From implementation of the suite’s apps and infrastructure, from both a technical and a service delivery perspective.
Ok… CV speak out of the way! This is my first consultancy role. IT Pro with 18 years’ experience in infrastructure and support now working as an IT consultant. Been on the IT scene since Windows NT 4.0. (Generally don’t use this reference in front of under 25s as tends to result in blank expressions). Only thing you really had to worry about was making sure you had the correct drivers installed!
Provided support on many products and platforms, from Microsoft to Apple, Cisco, Avaya, Dell, HP and even Linux. Done hundreds of installs from the common desktop to highly available virtual server environments utilising clustered storage networks. There in the early days of ‘tin in a corner’. My career has been as much of a digital transformation journey as any of the businesses I’m working with. From in-house massive servers, to cloud technologies that enable people and organisations to work anyplace, anytime.
The industry has brought, and continues to bring change at a rate of knots. Biggest change by far, is the fact our customers are no longer tied to the restrictions of on-premises infrastructures, relying on some form of remote client to access their data. No longer have to sweat their assets for years to get every penny’s worth. Seen businesses evolve from staff tied to a desk 9-5, to being totally remote and some even closing their satellite offices as home-workers embrace the flexibility of an improved work-life balance, coupled with an increase in productivity and a boost to the business bottom line.
This journey has taken me to where I am today. ‘Been there, done that’ experience of a break-fix IT environment in small to large businesses. This allows me to fully understand the intricacies and challenges of our customers that are now embarking on that jump to cloud.
Microsoft has changed the way people work and the way businesses function. Office 365 offers email, data, collaboration and comms, all in the cloud, fully secure and compliant, available on demand. Work is now something you do, rather than somewhere you go! I’m office-less, as are most of Minttulip. We work from home, client sites, WeWork head office, on trains… Pooling skillsets from across the country, collaborating in Microsoft Teams and Yammer and resulting in higher levels of productivity, seamless communications with the ability to pull resource onto any job, with the particular skill or experience, from anywhere. It benefits our customers and us at MintTulip. Win-win!