How COVID-19 Becomes The Source Of Propulsion Towards Digital Transformation
Shubham Joshi
Published 10/10/2021
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With the evolution of the contagious disease called COVID-19 due to the virus SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus), there is a sudden jump in digital transformation across the globe. No one has ever thought that common illness factors like headache, fever, cough, and fatigue get converted into the blood-curdling phase. But due to the pandemic, we all are today looking to a brand new and more health-conscious world. Because of such a huge spread of this disease, every sector is now seen as digitally transformed in all their working tactics.
As per the report provided by IBM, executives prioritize nearly 62% from just 20% of the digital transformation by 2022.
Therefore, whether the activities are related to work, travel, education system, or entertainment, this virus has forced all individuals to shift to the digital platform.
Technology and digital tools work as a source of survival in this widely spread disease for everyone. This helps us follow the precautionary guidelines- wearing the mask, keeping a safe distance, and sanitation.
Still, feeling unconfident that COVID-19 drives the digital transformation? Then, look into the aspects that show its significant effects in the following points.
Improved Digital Transformation Scenario Due To Global Pandemic
As far as the world was unaware of the occurrence of this pandemic, digital adoption occurred at a slow rate. But as the disease started spreading, all the major attention was received by the digital transformation.
Every sector and industry is continuously adapting digital technology to fight and run their business in the pandemic. To put better insight into it following statistics are presented-
In the education sector, 87% of the educational leaders believe that there is great importance of the digital institution to build a future-ready workplace.
69% of the organizations had accelerated digital business initiatives in response to the pandemic.
In the pharmaceutical industry, due to COVID-19, digital transformation is quickened by five years.
Because of this global crisis, a global acceleration of about 58% is made in digitizing customer interactions.
Due to the turbocharged behavior of this pandemic on digital banking, nearly 44% of the customers said that they are using the mobile banking application more frequently.
As per 44% of the agencies at all government levels, enhancement in the use of digital services will prepare them for the next disruptive event.
How COVID-19 Becomes The “Accelerator” Of Digital Transformation
Digitalization makes it possible for all individuals to continue their work in this pandemic. The number of aspects showing the impact of COVID-19 on digital transformation is shown in the following points-
1. Use Of Customer-friendly Apps
Because of the worldwide self-isolation environment, most customers prefer to use the online medium to undertake their actions. With clients’ increasing use of digital devices, COVID-19 forces companies to take a “Leap of faith” and deliver a renewed experience to the customers in new ways. In this scenario, all the firms had to ensure that they give the best experience to their customers. This upscales the importance of utilizing customer-friendly systems.
Among Dell’s list of digital transformation programs, reinvention of digital experience for the customers is fast-tracked by 80% of the businesses. Keeping this view in mind, customer-friendly applications work as a hallmark for succeeding the business more in this pandemic.
E-commerce business is on the top of the chart who need to and has concentrated on this aspect in their working model. This helps them to keep the customers from going away to another company.
2. Access Security For The WFH Employees Improved
The remote working trend that many were resisting from is now turned into a necessity. Moreover, as per the research of factoHR.com, nearly 63% of the employees desire to perform their job in the remote working environment entirely. This led to more use of digital devices, including employee’s personal systems. With such a huge number of remote employees, the cases of vulnerability have increased drastically. Crucial data, files, email data were at high risk of getting hacked.
This leads to the use of more security software for the whole team to let them work in a more secure environment. This brings more concern to the IT department to take care of the security in different ways. It includes giving the right to use only test applications and tools like VPN and PAM (Privileged Access Management) to keep their work secured.
Google has taken the phishing and malware concerns more seriously in which as they find any threat, they directly add it to the Safe Browsing API to protect the users while using its integrated products.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are considered inseparable parts of the digital transformation, giving several firms a major competitive and processing advantage. Data analysis is one of the core areas in which extensive usage of AI due to coronavirus is made.
With the help of advanced AI algorithms and NLP (Natural Language Processing), the process of data analysis has turned into an automated, clean, and visual way. This gives more preference to the use of AI in data analysis than other solutions, as shown in the figure below-
AI is used for performing several analyses, including text, sentiment, text classification, and text extraction with just a few human inputs. For this purpose, this technology is preferably used from the very beginning of the pandemic period to get the job done faster by putting more insight into the data.
With this knowledge, the whole team can learn what is working and what is not. This approach especially helps in product development to give the best to the customers. This brings more responsiveness to the customers’ changing needs and behaviors, making the business processes more efficient.
4. Self-service Apps
With the continuous spreading of coronavirus all around the world, there is a sudden pause in the physical actions performed by the customers and the employees. That’s why to ensure that the business remains connected to them, the development of self-service systems is made.
This is one of the biggest developments that bring more accessibility for the clients and the employees to get their work done without stepping out of their place. Such a facility makes their experience much better.
For the customers with the self-service application, they can perform more activities on the website of the company. It includes access to the FAQs, necessary documents, product information, chatbots, transaction completion, and many more. Along with giving this benefit to them, in return, businesses are getting enough data to analyze their activities on the website.
This helps in serving them in the best way by studying their preferences. Also, such data is further usable in advertisement and promotional activities.
On the worker’s side, the ESS (Employee Self Service) application allows employees to get information related to their payroll, attendance, leave, performance, and primary required documents. In the pandemic period, such an application gives relaxation to the workers to get all the information without contacting HR managers.
5. Rise In Patch Management
With the increase in the number of remote users, the need for patch management has increased tremendously. To keep the systems safe from exploitation, measurement of system reliability, compliance, and feature improvement, the patch is highly used. Unpacked applications work as the easiest source for attackers to get an entry into the business activities. That’s why there is an enormous need for patch management in the remote working model.
Further, all the companies abide to protect customers’ data from various threats like viruses, trojans, malware, and worms. Any of these are capable enough to harm the security of the system and its data.
Taking note of security concerns, the need for virtual patching is increased. This vulnerability shielding gives many benefits, including improving regulatory compliance, the additional layer of security, and avoiding downtime. Thanks to digital transformation that makes it possible for IT supporters to handle this situation in the best way, as many patch management tools are available today.
This helps them fix vulnerabilities that are more susceptible to cyber-attacks, leaving behind many benefits for the organization, including a secure work structure, satisfied customers, staying away from unnecessary fines, and better product innovation.
6. Digital Workplace Progression
The old-school concept is left very far in this pandemic period, speeding up the digital workplace implementation. COVID-19 put the spotlight on the development of a virtual workplace where all the employees are connected virtually to work in a collaborative environment.
We all cannot predict how long this pandemic will remain. That’s why the companies are preparing themselves to turn into a digital workplace to run their office remotely. It is a pretty good replacement for the physical workplace where all the workers get better and uninterrupted access to all the needed tools, data, applications, and features at any time, anywhere, and on any device.
To put better insight on it, a few years back, the retiring CEO of CISCO predicted that nearly 40% of the businesses would die in the next ten years if they did not know how to adopt digitalization in their workplace. And this is what is happening. Today, several companies that understand its importance are working with the best approaches and thanking the advanced technology for making their work more efficient.
Understanding this concern, the government of Cascais in Portugal has taken a step ahead in the digital workplace called mobile-enabled digital workplace. This results in scaling up the productivity of the employees to an incredible amount. Many tools for document management, online collaboration, performance management, connectivity, project management, video conferences, and time management are available due to the faster adoption of digital transformation.
Conclusion
The best concluding words that thoroughly helps in understanding this article are – COVID-19 works as a powerful key to unlock and even speed up the digital transformation across the globe. With the proper utilization of digital technologies and tools, more and more advancement will come in every sector.
It will lead to bringing more efficiency, productivity, flexibility, transparency, and agility. This is what the future holds for the world that has begun rapidly due to the pandemic. With technological advancement, the whole world can fight better against the virus and is stepping into a better digital environment.
Author Bio:
Shubham Joshi is an experienced content marketer. Passionate about training and development programs, he is always ready to help colleagues and customers by representing concrete ideas and methodology. Beyond work, he is well-equipped with problem-solving abilities.
With the evolution of the contagious disease called COVID-19 due to the virus SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus), there is a sudden jump in digital transformation across the globe. No one has ever thought that common illness factors like headache, fever, cough, and fatigue get converted into the blood-curdling phase. But due to the pandemic, we all are today looking to a brand new and more health-conscious world. Because of such a huge spread of this disease, every sector is now seen as digitally transformed in all their working tactics.
