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As we’re now into our second full year of dealing with the pandemic, and coincidentally I have just passed my one year anniversary of joining Traveltek, it feels like a good time to pause for a breath of reflection and to look ahead.

A year ago, we were all faced with the reality of having to make exceptionally difficult decisions in an unprecedented operating environment. As an industry, and I would say more than any other, we have had to tackle extreme disruption, lack of clear direction from Government bodies, and no coherent strategy to assist the industry out of restrictions. However – the core strength of the industry is clear; pent-up demand is growing, and we can already see from our new Data Insights beta product that the position is starting to improve.

At Traveltek, we look back on the last year with pride in being able to support our customers through these difficult circumstances while also achieving some significant milestones, such as our full migration to cloud hosting. But we also look forward and know that the challenges don’t stop. We have lots more work to do – both to deal with the ongoing challenges of today and also to prepare us for the future.

In terms of today’s challenges – it’s become clear that we’re starting to see some of the indirect impacts of the pandemic. Remote working is something that everyone has been dealing with, but within the technology sector, it has a significant impact on career opportunities for individuals. With geographical barriers removed, mobility within technical roles have never been higher. As a result, Traveltek has experienced levels of technical staff attrition that have disrupted some areas of our delivery. We have been taking some positive action to address this: we have 3 recent new hires into our Maintenance Development team to address demand there; we also have plans to transition some of our existing staff in India into Maintenance Development roles.  Once these new colleagues have gone through the technical induction process and can tackle customer issues and developments, I expect a significant improvement in our ability to close issues within our published SLA windows. I appreciate the patience of customers while this happens.

You may also have noticed some recent activity on social media and in the media around a wider staff recruitment campaign. We have identified the need to make a major investment in our product set and build the next generation of technology to support the industry. We are currently going through the process of bringing some very high-quality technical expertise into the team to support this. Coupled with the skills and knowledge of the existing team, we will be able to develop and deliver some very exciting product improvements. I am also delighted to announce that we have set a date and time for the inaugural Roadmap webinar. Full details on the date, time and registration are contained in the newsletter. 

If you have any questions about anything mentioned in this month’s Tektalk, please contact your account manager, who will be happy to assist.