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COVID-19: Technology Adoption and Adaptation
Luveena Bhookhun
Manager, Consulting
Email: luveena.bhookhun@pwc.com
Nobody ever thought it could be done, yet the whole world changed lanes overnight.
COVID-19 took only a few months to become a global outbreak and made every day’s headlines. While the travel industry took the biggest hit, other industries were also impacted. Companies had to change gears overnight. In the beginning, we were all adapting to this unprecedented situation; trying to figure how the future would look like.
The Technological Shift
COVID-19 accelerated technology adoption for both organisations and consumers. This resulted from restricted mobility imposed by local authorities, remote working becoming the norm, and compliance requirements for local organisations.
This rapid technological adoption also changed the way businesses operate. HR transformation is a good example whereby onboarding, training, and salary were digitised to match the workforce realities during the pandemic.
Following governments issued orders of restricted mobility, consumers moved towards online channels. Most industries have responded in turn by operating remotely. Technology adoption has taken a quantum leap since and the world is binging on software applications.
The Inside Lens: What it means for Technology professionals?
For technology professionals, while tech adoption was seen more as an opportunity, the same phenomenon also posed a backbreaking challenge. Among the various niches, software application development gained momentum. The work dynamics worldwide also resulted in technology no longer being a luxury, but a survival need.
Technology professionals were also influenced by extrinsic factors mainly driven by a change in customer behaviour such as impatience. As such, the focus quickly shifted from functionalities to performance.
For instance, consultants constantly looked for ways to reduce complexities and frictions, simplifying requirements while keeping the lead on market competitions. To achieve this, technology professionals had to close the gap between technical expertise and technology integration skills.
Technologies that fuelled business transformations last year are no longer relevant. While they continue to evolve fast; they also dissolve at warp speed. Everyone is being asked to do more with less. This is not the time to recycle the same piece of coding for all clients. Customisation is the catalyst to our proposed solutions.
Looking at the customer spectrum, we have seen that the prioritisation of each client is different. Clients’ demands have different shades. It is no longer a one size fit all approach.
Where should you funnel your investment?
Investment priorities across organisations have changed. There are no blueprints to advise companies on the new framework to adopt because of the pandemic. It has been an uphill battle for companies to restructure their business model. Investment decisions have gone from ruthless shotgun decisions to surgical precisions.
Most organisations are looking to simplify their environment by reducing complexities and absorbing friction. Although the globe is living and breathing technological solutions, not everything should be digitised. Organisations’ tech leaders need to analyse the spectrum where they currently fit in.
Here’s our observations of the different organisations’ wavelengths
Old Schoolers
Companies which didn’t have digital business models are still trying to figure out how to survive, finding the balance while shifting from being inflexible to being more open to change. Those companies can only thrive on cost optimisation by shrinking the cost structure wherever they can: FTEs, number of divisions or simply, their overall staff headcount.
Of course, we are not asking the old schoolers to just lop off their traditional ways from their day-to-day agenda. Instead, we are here to advise them on how to meaningfully redesign the way they work and bridge the digital divide. These can be done by injecting the efficient and effective tools into their daily operations while not resorting to regression, simply for the purpose of just doing it. At the start, their KPIs might show a trend of underperformance, but as they pick up the pace and embrace the technology revolution, they can only benefit from the digital transition.
Tech Laggards
Another group of companies figured out how to survive in this post-pandemic environment and their coping mechanisms have not been an arduous struggle. They’ve at least pared down their costs either by the re-negotiations of some of their contracts or by lighting up new business modules or ventures, finding new ways to reconnect with old customers, whether it’s B2B or B2C. These companies have a higher investment capacity and need IT consultancy to know exactly when and how to invest.
Our Advisory consulting solvers guide you step by step to identify exactly where to invest your resources depending on your business models. Through our robust solutions such as Robotic Process Automation and Alteryx alternatives, manual and repetitive operations can be reconstructed to add more value to your day to day operations.
Fast Followers
They already had the idea of investing and probably even started digital projects but never had the urgency to complete them. This group went into turbo mode as soon as the pandemic hit. This category of organisation jumped in to go ahead with their investment just to stay in the competitive market.
This is where we also step in to help them rediscover new ways of recycling their once-envisaged-solutions to more simple but robust prototypes which we eventually convert to bespoke solutions.
The Marksmen
Artificial Intelligence, robotics, analytics and cloud computing have been on their radars for more than a decade. They knew what they had to do all along. Technology is not a new arena for them. They don’t aim at the target; they aim on the other side of it because they know how the market is.
For organisations which already had their focus on innovation, we inject the idea of integrations with internal or external systems for them to be more resilient and stay competitive on the market. We create a landscape for them that will continue to foster innovation and technological adoption moving forward.
Conclusion
Technology is now the panacea for organisations, industries and most importantly consumers. It is primordial that all industries do not jump to panic investment. It’s not always about acquisition, but how far you can adapt and sustain. While organisations continue to stand in the corners of the new norm, some perceive technology adoption as one way of saving money.
Others understand that technology sharpens the edges over competitors, and it is a one-way street to seizing new opportunities in the industry. As businesses realise these plus points, they will be positioned to keep adopting technology and at the same time adapting to what it has to offer.
Traditional resilience or succession planning is not a shock absorbent for a next surge of a pandemic or any epidemic. Having a half-measure system is better than having no system at all. Technology’s adoption truisms are that it is not about technology; having a vision and roadmap is a given. Adopting technology for technology's sake could well be a recipe for failure. Consult. Adopt. Adapt.
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