As businesses invest in the tools and technologies to solve specific issues, they are building resilience. They helping to protect their organizations, employees and customers from risk. And they are accelerating the pace of change.
Covid-19 has been a catalyst for change. In April 2020, almost half the people in employment in the UK were working from home.86% of these said they did so because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Those companies which had previously resisted homeworking had no option but to embrace this new way of working, for the safety of their employees and communities. Workers very quickly had to get up to speed on new tools for collaboration, work sharing and interaction to replace face-to-face communication. Microsoft Teams users surged 70% with numbers reaching 75 million daily active users, while Zoom became a verb (“Are we Zooming today?”). Companies quickly had to find alternatives for tasks usually completed in an office setting, with those businesses previously resistant to change having to adapt at pace. Technology has been a huge enabler during this time across our work and home lives – not just for collaboration but to maintain continuity, to deliver business-critical operations and to help us stay connected. Technology has also helped organizations meet changing consumer behaviors, such as the emergence of the ‘homebody’ economy and the explosion in ecommerce. Technology platforms, APIs and software analytics are playing key roles in delivering against consumer expectations, improving the customer experience, streamlining systems, automating processes and allowing businesses to scale up and take advantage of rising demand. The impact of the Coronavirus on our societies has expedited digital transformation on a scale no-one could have predicted. I’m not just talking about your parents upskilling, comfortably Zooming and WhatsApping in a short space of time – although that in itself is pretty remarkable. What we’re experiencing is a significant, universal acceleration of technology adoption throughout our developed world. Many businesses talk of going through a digital transformation.
