Overnight digital transformation: COVID-19 inevitable impact?
Do businesses need to change their strategy to prepare for the digital post-COVID landscape ahead?
The pandemic and its uncertain aftermath are creating a new environment and new challenges for business technology innovation. The question is, what do business leaders need to do to prepare their organisations for the post-COVID landscape ahead? Do they need to change their strategy? Or do they need to keep implementing what they had already planned?
Accelerating the rush to digitisation
Before COVID-19 came along, digital transformations have mainly been seen among businesses with immediate competitive threat from tech-savvy industry disruptors. It was seen as a huge, expensive and time-consuming under-going that only big businesses had the luxury of undergoing.
There are speculation and anecdotal accounts that the COVID-19-related shutdowns, slowdowns in business and consumer activity, and closures of physical workplaces may be the mega-event that pushes even the most reluctant businesses toward digital transformation and accelerates the rush to digitisation.
Wake-up call to the value of digital
According to a recent analysis by McKinsey Digital, the pandemic has provided a sudden glimpse into the future, where digital has become central to every interaction. Digital channels will become the primary customer-engagement model, and automated processes will become a primary driver of productivity. This stark wake-up call to both organisations, has forced them further up the adoption curve almost overnight.
Digital initiatives scaled in a matter of days and weeks
Although it might be tempting to play it safe while the crisis unfolds, this will often be the worst option. Uncomfortable as it is, right now, a moment of crisis, is precisely the right time to be bold and brave to advance your digital agenda.
“If the pace of the pre-coronavirus world was already fast, the luxury of time now seems to have disappeared completely,” according to McKinsey Digital. “Businesses that once mapped digital strategy in one- to three-year phases must now scale their initiatives in a matter of days or weeks.”
But, how do you know where to start?
As a business, you will have a wide range of processes and functions and perhaps they could all do with some improvements. Possibilities are endless of course, but time is always working against us and the budget is to be allocated to the highest ROI initiatives . So it’s important to pick the right problems to solve to achieve the biggest impact.
At Geeks, I have been leading an innovative way of tackling this problem that has resulted in creation of Digital IQ , an intelligent technology to guide the digital transformation initiatives. It assesses the current business operations and measures the potential for digital transformation, enabling the business to discover the most effective roadmap for digital transformation, delivering the highest ROI.
The global pandemic has thrown us into an entirely new world. Business leaders can no longer sit back and can no longer put off the digital transformation initiatives. Using Digital IQ we are confident that we help our clients to well-position their businesses when this crisis passes.
