Five years later…

Five years. It’s been five years since Covid-19 arrived. Five years since SARS-CoV-2 had a global health impact, but also five years since IT departments had to adapt their operating methods. What happened? January 24, 2020, first case in France. On February 25, first death of a French person linked to Covid in France. On March 12, Emmanuel Macron announced the closure of schools, and on March 17, the first confinement. And there, we had to adapt…

Word from DSI / Par Thomas Chejfec, Director of Information Systems

Overnight, IT departments mobilized with their teams to offer employees the opportunity to work. At the time, Teams was almost non-existent, Skype for Business was the most used. Employees had to leave home with a procedure for connecting their workstation from home and various recommendations. In the parking lots, the trunks of the cars were filled with screens and materials so that everyone could take them home.

And the next day, the troubles for businesses, in general, began. Saturation of VPNs, initially intended for a few happy few, insufficient bandwidth to access information systems, limited access to critical or essential applications remaining on-premises… The absence of cloud solutions allowing access “ anywhere, anytime, any device » transformed this period into a real nightmare for IT departments who had not anticipated a modernization of their information system. IT security, too, has not emerged unscathed from this era. Lack of multi-factor authentication (MFA), increase in attacks, particularly on home-based employees who, poorly trained or poorly aware, did not protect themselves sufficiently… Multiple flaws in the RDP protocol have worsened the situation.

Then we had to live with it. Some returned to work with the small form authorizing their travel. Some companies deemed essential have provided face-to-face services, but with extremely limited conditions of proximity between employees.

Of all this upheaval, what remains?

Teleworking remainedeven if, in recent months, many companies are gradually giving up on it. Hybrid approaches, mixing face-to-face and remote, are still widely adopted, but they bring real management challenges, particularly in terms of efficiency, collaboration and team cohesion.

Psychosocial issues related to hybrid work have also become a major topic for companies. The use of collaborative technologies has grown and enriched. Today, they offer more integrated and intuitive solutions, with a clear focus on user experience. Tools like Microsoft Teams, which were emerging in 2020, have become central pillars of communication and collaborative work.

In my opinion, the biggest change was how to use cloud solutions. The latter were adopted massively, although forced. Post-Covid, companies have rationalized their use while avoiding returning to on-premises infrastructures. The cloud is today a standard, essential to guarantee the flexibility and resilience of systems.

Moreover, IT security has really taken off. While attacks have increased in frequency and sophistication, CIO responses have improved with the massive adoption of solutions such as zero trust, proactive monitoring tools and increased employee awareness.

The perception of IT as a key driver of organizational effectiveness has evolvedwith leaders recognizing its strategic importance more.

Five years later, it is undeniable that the digital transformation of companies has been greatly accelerated by this episode.. The role played by CIOs during this period also allowed them to gain popularity. They had to urgently deploy solutions, sometimes innovate to put them in place and find the right tools. This event demonstrated their ability to react quickly, but also to prepare for the future. Many managers have taken a different look at our activity, bringing us from the shadows to the light, for the greater efficiency of the entire company.

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