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Writer's pictureAtul Ojha

Has Pandemic accelerated the digital transformation?

Updated: Aug 4, 2021


PANDEMIC ACCELERATES THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Picture this, according to a survey of 2,569 global enterprise leaders published by Twilio quoted by Roberto Torres for CIO Dive:

  • At 79% of companies, digital transformation budgets grew in response to global patterns shifting.

  • At 26% of respondents, transformation budgets grew 'dramatically' as pandemic speeds up digital.

  • At 97% of companies the pandemic sped up digital transformation strategies with a special focus on digital communications. One-third of companies began deploying live chat or interactive voice response (IVR) platforms for the first time in responding to the pandemic.

  • At 37% of companies, getting executive approval or buy-in stopped being a barrier for digital transformation processes creating space for more line-of-business experimentation.

  • At 35% of businesses. reluctance to replace legacy software went away.

When COVID-19 hit, businesses needed to reassess their operations in real time. The pivot to remote work made digital transformation objectives move up the priority pipeline: from aspirational to necessary.


Ms. Monika Sinha, research vice president at Gartner, in an interview with CIO Dive, says that in the pandemic, the process of choosing the initiatives that receive funding has changed "because the overall business strategy has shifted". Regardless of how the pandemic impacted their industry, executives expect tech investments will help solve the business problem they’re facing.

The last few months compressed "years-long digital transformation roadmaps" into days and weeks in order to adapt to the COVID-19 way of doing business, said Glenn Weinstein, chief customer officer at Twilio, in a statement accompanying the survey. Customers "in nearly every industry" needed new channels to communicate with stakeholders.


Tech goals changed depending on industry context. Travel industry CIOs are more likely to press the pause button on capital intensive initiatives than their peers at software companies that enable remote work.


The changes impacted global IT spend forecasts, slated to reach $3.5 trillion in 2020, according to Gartner projections. The number represents a 7.3% drop from 2019, in stark contrast from its January projections of a 3.4% YOY boost.


Though response was swift at most businesses, CEOs continued to oversee digital transformation budgets at the majority of companies, according to data from Tata Consultancy Services. At just 18% of businesses the CIO makes budget determinations on digital transformation spending.


So not everything is looking gloomy, there are a lot of good has emerged on the digital transformation front for companies, this good is going to be extremely helpful to these companies, from a long-term advantage that will accrue to be leveraged.


Even at Axon Networks, Digital is not just front-end for us. We connect offices, employees and machines for a data driven enterprise through a suite of Managed Connectivity, Industrial IoT and SD-WAN solutions. We understand the criticality of for enterprises and the challenges of managing them in India. Which is why we are a telco agnostic fully managed network provider connecting machines, factories, warehouses, offices and WFH employees anywhere in India.


How is your organization’s Digital journey so far? Has the pandemic accelerated the Digital Transformation for you? Do share!

Regards,

Atul Ojha

Co-Founder

Axon Networks

www.axonnetworks.in

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