What COVID Taught Us About Digital Transformation

 All through 2020 and well into 2021, remote working has changed the way that we do business. It has changed what we are doing now and what we will be doing years from now.

While the rate of digital transformation has vastly improved in order to allow companies to cope with this new remote working world , it seems that not all digital transformation has been a resounding success. As COVID forced millions of workers to stay home, it became very clear that our transformations and initiatives were not all a success and that many needed to tailor their digital needs to the market in which they operate.

Fast Tracking our Transformations

VP OF Strategy at Progress, based in Raleigh NC, Mark Troester pointed out that the economic downturn that was initially caused by the COVID pandemic made companies cut their budgets dramatically. At the same time the same crisis was causing them to rethink their digital efforts and forced them to fast track the same because customer demand was up, in person interactions were not possible and employees had to work remotely.

Troester stated that according to their data "74% of respondents say their company increased focus on supporting/improving their digital experiences (DX) as a result of COVID-19, while 73% of those respondents say their companies have made financial investments in the resources to support it. In fact, 55% say that digital experience initiatives that had previously been delayed have now been accelerated because of "

“As we move into 2021, I predict that digital technology initiatives will still be at the top of Board of Directors' priority investments. I also predict that a specific area of investment will be DesignOps capabilities, which integrates the designer into the digital experience development process,” he said.

The biggest change in the way that the digital transformation happened, according to Iain Scholnick, founder and CEO of platform developer Braidio,said is that the "COVID-19 pandemic has compressed the cycle for digital transformation initiatives and will require that organizations to respond in an agile manner, revamping their efforts to adapt and remain competitive in the post-COVID-19 era. The digitalization of the customer and employee experiences has emerged as a critical mechanism to ensure business continuity, during and following the pandemic."

He believes that a more rapid response and one that is more agile in nature is going to be necessary. He feels that a key elements for companies that want to adapt to this new more hybrid reality that companies are dealing with is that digitalization of both the employee and customer experience is going to be of paramount importance, to permit "unified access and the aggregation of tasks into workflows delivered via mobile app or to the desktop."

What COVID has taught us is that maybe the entire systems do not need to be digitally transformed and that in many cases that was too slow of an option for companies who needed agile, rapid transformation to stay afloat during the COVID crisis.

Eric, DevOps engineer at RapidAPI, believes that during 2021 we need speed and we have a lot less time for mistakes and problems and a great deal less experimentation and more implementation.

Whether we are talking employees, employee management or productivity, our digital strategies need to be streamlined and sped up to achieve what we need to in our rapidly changing work environment. During 2021 things will continue to change and the world of business will require more digital transformation than ever before.

Many companies may not exist in their present form and some will be reborn in a remote workplace environment while some may not come back at all. 

In 2021, the reality is that nothing will be as it was with the workplace or the world pre-pandemic. It’s true what they say… you can’t go back.

Looking to expand your knowledge about Digital Transformation/Digtial Twin/ Smart Cities/Artificial Intelligence or find your next IOT Dream Team. Hit the link below to chat with one of our consultants or read some of our latest articles.

Schedule an IOT Search Assessment 

Check out our Recent Article