Warren Buffet once said that it’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who has been swimming naked, and the COVID-19 crisis has exposed businesses like nothing else in living memory. Far from being exposed, Deanta’s business thrived during 2020 so, at the end of a year like no other, we invited the senior management team to reflect on how the organisation weathered the storm and the learnings that we might take forward.

On the joys of the cloud…

COVID-19 has caused huge damage and affected every aspect of our lives but it has also created a paradigm shift, showing the possibilities of a new way of working. We have not been in the office for eight months and counting, yet from a work perspective, everything looks surprisingly normal and in place. Navigating this period without our whole organisation working in the cloud would have been much more painful.
Darshana Prasad, VP Operations

On working remotely…

The human impact of having to leave the office has been profound. I believe hugely in the impact of culture and the social side working in an office. It’s a place where ideas happen, where people come to work and to be inspired by their colleagues. Maintaining that culture remotely has been a real challenge.
Darren Ryan, CEO

On mental health…

No matter what’s happening, from a morale perspective it has been really important to let people that their work and output is worthwhile. As a management team we’ve had to understand that a different set of skills are required to be watchful and supportive and to reach out to any staff that were feeling isolated.
Darren Ryan, CEO

On agile teams…

Times of crisis tend to trigger or accelerate organisation change but we’ve seen some past decision play out in our favor so our structure hasn’t really changed. Our ultimate goal was always for our production teams to be auditors rather than production operators and we have largely achieved that – due to automation and cross-training. The automation in Lanstad is beyond anything the market has seen, and we trained our staff so that they could move from one job function to another and one client to another. Smaller, leaner, more flexible teams tend to have time to think and add value, and that’s proven true and been invaluable during the Covid-19 period.
Saai Murugan, VP of Technology

On foresight and technology…

Our intention was always to create a flexible technology which would allow people to work from anywhere. We never wanted to be dependent on a specific location – at least not from a work perspective. All the developments and investments we made on the Lanstad cloud platform – years before 2020 – have been vindicated, as that’s been the need of the hour. The rules of the game are changing but it’s good to know we made the right decisions in the past.
Saai Murugan, VP of Technology

On industry trends…

The digital revolution in publishing is inevitable and there is going to be an explosion soon. In 2020 publishers have had to examine every aspect of their own models. If your digital products are not where you want them to be, just as demand for digital increases, then that really puts a question mark on your competitive position overall. The question now is really about how content is being created, distributed, and represented and how the whole package performs; it is about the entire supply chain.
Darren Ryan, CEO

 

At the time of writing Deanta’s teams in Chennai and Dublin remain in lockdown, as do many of our customers around the world. Above and beyond the infrastructure and processes that have allowed us to continue to work together, Deanta would like to offer our heart-felt thanks to our customers and to our entire staff for their continued support throughout this difficult time.