Carl Fransen’s Interview on Canada’s Podcast

Carl Fransen’s Interview on Canada’s Podcast

The Coronavirus pandemic is not the first disruption businesses and organizations have faced, and it will not be the last. We have all been impacted in some shape or form. For many businesses, the rush to transition to remote work was challenging —leaving them at a standstill when it came to finding the right tools and remaining connected with those on their team without sacrificing productivity and security.

On the other hand, there were businesses of all shapes and sizes that embraced the opportunities for their employees to work completely untethered regardless of their circumstances or their location. Before the pandemic, over 80 percent of Canadian employees worked from an external workplace. Today, those numbers have changed, with nearly 60 percent of employees have worked from home at some point during the coronavirus pandemic.

As remote work makes the transition to becoming the de facto standard in many industries, Managed Services Providers (MSPs) have an incredible opportunity to deliver a solution that will maximize the potential of a workforce. In the last few years, cloud technology has gone from an emerging technology to a quintessential business tool. If an incredible change can take place in such a short period of time, what can the next few years hold for the cloud? There is tremendous cloud growth on the horizon.

Carl Fransen, president of CTECH Consulting Group was recently a guest on Canada’s Podcast. Speaking on the importance of leveraging cloud technology, Carl added critical insight into the world of IT and cloud technology.

Cloud Technology

During his interview, Carl explained how businesses of all sizes can take advantage of cloud technology, whatever form it may be, to enhance their business. Carl mentioned that the COVID-19 pandemic gave cloud technology(or the modern workplace) an ”artificial push” around 2-3 years. Cloud technology offers more reliability in terms of ensuring all systems and applications are up-to-date. Your business must understand how technology is utilized within your business or organization and what you want when using the cloud.

The cloud means access from anywhere at any time as long as you have a reliable internet connection. At CTECH, we promote a lifestyle that ”anybody at any time can access any information anywhere in the world to collaborate with anybody on any device”.  This means that anyone will be able to stay ahead of the abundance of tasks that will build up when you are not in an external workplace.

Client Pain Points

During the interview, Carl mentioned one of the best ways to shape client relationships positively is to shift the focus towards how the client’s pain points can be addressed. The concept of pain points refers to the areas where the client is feeling the most pain. Generally, a pain point is not a technical problem, but it is rather a source of stress or anxiety that a client is feeling.

The first step in effectively addressing a pain point is to actually understand the pain points. Over the years, Carl learned how important it is to listen to the clients and understand what their specific pain points are. The pain points will not be the same for every client, nor will they all be obvious. Whatever pain points the client reveals, immediate notice should be taken. Clients deserve to have the solutions they need, and not just the solutions we want to give them.

Proof of Concept

When sitting down with a client to determine how a solution may be the best fit for the client’s needs, the proof of concept is a vital step that can spark ideas for the introduction and implementation of new concepts. As Carl puts it: ”The proof of concept is the difference between success or failure of the entire project” at a local level or regional level in the adoption of technology.

Technical buyers will hold firm to the technologies they purchase and the processes they use, and they will sometimes get a technology religion about it. They will typically not make any movements until they begin to feel uncomfortable. One of the best ways to defeat this is to educate the clients on a solution and make them comfortable with it.

Whether you are making additions to an existing project or whether you are building something from the ground up, a proof of concept will ensure clients are taken on a direct route to success. Even the best systems can fail miserably if they are not being used. Businesses are spending billions of dollars across the world on various hardware and software, but many of those implementations are failing. Why?

The right steps are not being taken in the beginning. If you fail to think far enough beyond, you can find yourself at a standstill. With a capable solution, you will be able to put your best fit forward from the beginning. Once you begin to change the mindset of what your business is and what it could be moving forward, it will become easier to justify what comes next.

The Virtual Water Cooler

Cloud computing has been one of the biggest technology beneficiaries of the COVID-19 pandemic. While technology has made a tremendous impact on how business is conducted today, there are things that technology cannot replace, such as human interaction.

For many who work from home every week, there seems to be a tendency to live as though the world is only within the walls of the home office. For many, the world has been paused on many social interactions.

The digital world gives everyone a variety of ways to connect with people without leaving the home. It is important to be creative and not hesitant to use technology in other ways. Water cooler conversations are casual conversations that occur between coworkers in a workplace. So, what will happen when the majority of the workforce is working remotely?

Many businesses and organizations are creating what amounts to virtual water coolers. Virtual gatherings can be created that will allow employees to have work-related and non-work-related conversations. At CTECH Consulting Group, we have created a channel on our Microsoft Teams page to have work-related conversations and collaborations.

Businesses need to compete in order to adapt and survive to the fast-changing cloud technology. Our deep expertise at CTECH Consulting Group can access your readiness and make needed changes while providing technical support to your business or organization.

Written by Carl Fransen

posted on March 12, 2021

Carl Fransen

My passion is to make my mark on the world in a positive and lasting way. I want to set an example for my son that his father can compete with integrity in today’s world, be very successful, and leave the world a better place for him.

Combining my technical/business-based education with a long career steadily progressing up the corporate ladder, I decided to build a company that held true to my values. So, I founded and designed the next generation of IT support firm: CTECH Consulting Group Inc. We are a completely automated, cloud-based IT company designed to compete against any other IT firm without the overhead. We promote a lifestyle to all our staff where they can work anywhere, at any time, access any information on any device that is relevant to their job, and collaborate with anyone they want to.