8 Keys to Embrace the Pandemic as a Driving Force of Digital Transformation

COVID-19 has transformed the way we live, learn, buy, entertain, and socialize

Our way of working has also changed more over the last year than in the previous century. We have had to do it from home, with new tools and different rules that have forced the experience to reinvent. The opportunity associated with this crisis is undoubtedly the pandemic as a driver of digital transformation.

The world in 2021 has taken on another “tone.” But COVID-19, apart from its bafflement and tragedies, also leaves us with some positive surprises. We have taken eight important steps towards digital transformation and prior cultural change. Let’s see them:

“In Today’s era of volatility, there is no other way but to re-invent. the only sustainable advantage you can have over others is agility, that’s it. Because nothing else is sustainable, everything else you create, somebody else will replicate.” — Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder

The digital looks like something natural. Although there are still “allergic” people, a new view of the digital as necessary in our daily lives has become widespread. Technology is no longer a niche or something reserved for the younger generation.

It makes its way along the way. After years of talking about digital transformation, of absolute belief in its usefulness but of very little action on it, we have finally made progress on this. And we’ve learned that we have a lot more capacity to innovate than we thought.

We have made great strides in improving our digital training. Forced by necessity, we have no choice but to opt for digital education and health, video meetings, online shopping, and even virtual tourism. We have learned not only to “make the connection” but to see ICT as a necessary enabler. That digital life is not something out of the way of the other is now understood.

Many excuses and barriers have fallen in record time. Businesses, schools, businesses, everyone had to get their act together. Urgent urgency has seen that it wasn’t so difficult or so expensive — not even an option. The pandemic as a driving force of digital transformation is a reality.

Tools evolve into simpler, more inclusive interfaces. Also in the past year, we have seen a drive to improve user experience to break down any link barrier. We have found that you don’t need to be an engineer to take part in a videoconference.

We are rethinking how we want to work and how we want to live. This crisis has shown that another employment model is possible: offshoring, matching, and asynchrony are just as natural as the computer, email, or word processor once were.

We are more resilient. We are finally assuming that uncertainty and constant change have come to stay. And we’ve become more flexible, less dramatic in the face of upcoming changes in the office, recruitment models, or leadership styles.

We’ve broken the boundaries of space and time. We have assumed that soon the office will be a space reserved for developing creativity and strategizing in groups, while individual work will be remote. We have lost our fear of physical distance and even the time lag.

The bottom line. The survival of any business is the capacity of their leaders to be able to see what is need it to overcome the new consumer trends and adopt new technologies and systems accordingly to ensure the continuous improvement and growth of their enterprise.

“At least 40% of all businesses will die in the next 10 years… If they don’t figure out how to change their entire company to accommodate new technologies.” — John Chambers, Executive Chairman, Cisco Systems