11 December 2020
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3 min read
Winner of the Customer Satisfaction Award at this year's Channel Innovation Awards, 2nd Watch's product EVP Chris Garvey tells us how COVID has changed his business for the long term, and what piece of technology has proven invaluable to his firm over the last year.
This article is part of a Meet the Winners Q&A series as part of Channel Partner Insight's Channel Innovation Awards. Click here to see all of the award winners.
What has been your personal highlight of 2020?
2020 has been an incredibly difficult year for so many on some unthinkable levels. We feel very fortunate that, in our house, we have only had to balance full-time work from home and full-time virtual school from home. Our highlight certainly has been continued good health during the pandemic and some forced quality family time due to a lack of after school sports, activities, and business travel.
What has been the biggest challenge for your business this year?
Our biggest challenge this year has definitely been the lack of opportunity to meet face to face with our clients, partners, and other employees. We are a very client focused company, and those personal interactions are important and a key part of our culture. We haven't missed a beat providing services virtually, but we can't wait to get out and see people in-person again!
How has COVID changed your business long term?
When you are focused on helping companies adopt and leverage the public cloud, it is hard not to say that COVID has done anything other than accelerate our business. Everything from migration to modernization to management has ramped up as companies put more focus now on growing their business virtually and enabling employees remotely. If there has been any impact long-term, it is that we know we can certainly travel less even in normal times and feel very confident in continuing to hire the best talent in cloud, regardless of where they live.
What technology or app has been most valuable to you during the pandemic?
We use all of the virtual team video conferencing platforms, but use Zoom most often. Additionally, I'd say Slack has become critical as well, but it was even before COVID for team collaboration, operational cadence, and automation.
What are your top predictions for 2021?
2021 will be an interesting year on many fronts. I don't think we will see a large return to in-person/in-office normalcy until the Summer, and many companies may decide that is no reason to return at all. On the technology front, cloud adoption will continue to accelerate, sanctioned multi-cloud strategy will be common in the enterprise, clients will start to seek more training and team collaboration as part of a managed services relationship.
What does it mean to you to win the Customer Satisfaction Award in this year's Channel Innovation Awards?
Receiving this award is an important affirmation of our client satisfaction-focused culture as well as the continued investments in our platform and repeatable processes to maintain strong service delivery. It is a testament to our status as a trusted partner to our clients and our ability to deliver to the highest standards. We are grateful for and extremely proud of the work we're doing with our clients.
