It would not be an understatement to say Covid-19 has changed the world that we are living in today. While the crisis is still going on as the world faces the fourth wave and new variants, we are seeing the future unfold. Two developments have happened that are in themselves unprecedented. One is the continuation of organizations to shift to work from homes for their employees as a permanent set-up. The second is the pressure about what is the post Covid-19 world going to be in terms of business.
Nevertheless, while digital transformation was always the need of the hour in the wake of the widespread adoption of disruptive technologies and the ever-increasing integration of online and offline experiences within society. The added pressure was the replacement of incumbent major players by new sharp entrants who were geared to change the very value chains within entire industries. Now after the surfacing of Covid-19 and the manner in which it has closed down entire industries and disrupted operations for others along with bringing havoc to the growth patterns — without an iota of doubt, we can confidently say today businesses need to undertake digital transformation more than ever they needed to do so.
While organizations are under tremendous pressure to respond to the immediate impacts of the crisis — it is very important that the long-term impacts are not ignored. The Chinese word for crisis is ‘Weiji’. It is composed of two characters — ‘wei’ meaning danger and ‘ji’ meaning opportunity. We understand that while organizations need to ensure the continuity of business and minimize the negative impacts, it also needs to proactively position itself for rebound and long-term opportunities. We should carefully note that in the post-crisis world we are going to see more widespread adoption of digital technologies, growth of digital products and even the emergence of new operating models that prioritizes digital channels for delivery over traditional channels.
In this context, organizations should focus on the following three key areas:
Business Continuity
Organizations are faced with an unprecedented challenge wherein their employees are now settled to work at various locations. The silver lining is that we have a lot of digital tools available that makes it possible to work remotely and even setup functioning virtual offices. The challenge here is that what tools are best suited that would actually be productive while collaboration and information sharing across the organization is not badly affected to impact operations.
While good tools are required to make ‘work from home’ possible, the mindset shift is also very important here. No one has ever thought about such times and not everyone is prepared to respond to this with the desired outcomes. Therefore, organizations should not only focus on the tools rather how employees and customers would be able to use the tools — in the end of the day tools are not the end themselves rather they are just the means to reach a particular outcome(s). This is crucial for organizations to achieve continuity in their business operations especially mission critical activities.
Understanding Digital Transformation
Although the catch phrase digital transformation has the attention of everyone across every industry and business vertical; people are still confused on what it truly means and understand it to mean, just the adoption of some technologies. After corona hit the world, everyone started talking about how companies should undertake digital transformation to survive. Some people I heard were giving examples how many organizations were able to cope better due to being more digitally mature than others.
The problem with this superficial thinking is that while, yes, world digitalization has never been more important than it is today across the globe — it can never be a success until one actually understands what it is. For starters, it is not digitalization or going digital. In reality, digital transformation is a paradigm shift in how an organization uses and leverages technology. It is a mixture of strategy, emerging technologies, applications and tools. Businesses and industries have always reacted to changes and adapted themselves to the changing circumstances but this time the challenges presented by Covid-19 are totally different and require a more systematic and well-thought approach to respond.
As much as it’s important that the concept of digital transformation is totally understood — this is why I feel that organizations should focus more on inculcating the digital leaders within their employees and developing a shared understanding of what digital transformation means for the business, employees and their customers.
Grabbing the Opportunity
Now that we have revisited our understanding of digital transformation and established how digital transformation is no more a choice but a necessity that every business regardless of its industry and size must undertake — it is very important that we focus on what a real digital transformation truly entails and how it would create value for your customers, employees, organization’s decision makers and a foundational change in the organization itself in a world dramatically impacted by Covid-19. This ‘overnight’ crisis that frowned upon us has proved a very powerful concept to the corporate world — it is time to digitize the complex bureaucratic and slow procedures and rigid systems that not only impedes work but also leads to lower productivity and negatively impacts business outcomes.
In the end I will state that while the challenges brought to us by Covid-19 are extra-ordinary but there is a silver lining and we should not ignore the opportunities we have and aim to grab them. Digital transformation is the answer to the unprecedented crisis at hand.
