The world is still in the grips of the Covid19 pandemic, something which has witnessed various kind of restrictions on travels, socializing, sports, lockdowns of various types and forms, pre-post travel quarantines, immense rush to get the vaccine in place, a debate of the efficacy and side effects long term and short term has still not died down, on the contrary, is rising up & what not the world is going through.
For quite some time now in all my customer interactions and engagement, one question I never skip to ask is “How has Covid19 impacted your enterprise and the IT infrastructure of your Organization?
Though the flavor of the response varies depending upon the person and type of Organization one represents, but the underlying core was same all across.
“Covid19 was responsible for rapid Digital Transformation and not the CEO, the CIO or the CTO”
Though this may sound like a joke but it is the reality, the conversational feedbacks & facts around my discussions are:
The Organizations were not ready
The hit was hard, IT infrastructure to enable seamless work from home was poor. IT department flung into action, did what they could to get people functional, there were too many disruptions, though.
People were not ready
It was funny that a lot of people were discovering the nuances of remote log in, video calls invitation, set up and finally the video call. On the video call platform, people were struggling to use collaborative tools and other functions effectively, some of them were struggling with basic things like good connectivity and sufficient bandwidth. People were more stressed than usual with all this digital and remote management going around, with no IT folk to support.
Basically, on the outset every body including the organization were trying to discover things and solve issues on the fly! So much for the long-term strategy sessions of the executive teams to implement Digital Transformation, in the end everybody was wondering what were they doing all this while?
My conversations have led me to believe that many organizations were and still are, in the reactive mode, on one front IT can get modern tools and processes but if people do not adopt them quick enough, what use are those tools and investments? In spite of many simulated exercises conducted by some organizations, in preparation of mass scale disruptions, practically every organization was in a total reactive mode.
This is true for companies of all sizes, shapes and business models. I was pleasantly surprised to see that some of the small businesses were able to think with lightening speed and implement some of the changed behavior for survival and I also saw some big businesses falling on all four.
So, for me the base level learning and understanding is
“Digital Transformation is not a mere catch phrase for endless strategy sessions but needs real fast implementation”
Well, this is a pandemic of unimaginable magnitude, but my friend it could have been a natural disaster in your area, a limited geography pandemic affecting lesser area and not necessarily the globe, an earthquake a cyber-attack, would you have been ready? And if the honest answer is may be or no, you and your organization need some serious level thinking to save yourself. So please take this Digital transformation exercise a bit seriously and have a critical look at your IT strategy and for God’s sake implement what needs to be done and not talk endlessly.
How will you go along doing that? Some way forward can be:
Look at how resilient is your IT assets.
Can you continue to do business with your partners and customers if this situation was to re occur or continue?
Don’t commit yourself to one service or support provider, however amount of discount that may come your way commercially. Heard that saying “all eggs in one basket?”
Get the best IT team available in your business, it will be worth it.
At Axon Networks we believe a part of this is already a reality and much more will change in no time, we may play an important role in helping you to leverage all of this to your advantage in many more ways!
Stay safe & healthy.
Regards,
Atul Ojha
Co-founder
Axon Networks