Written by Natalia Kawana
We are halfway through 2020, and as we all know, Covid-19 has transformed all our life spheres. Our response to the Covid crisis had to consider not only health-related concerns, but also, how to balance the need for measures such as partial or total lockdowns and social distancing with the need to keep the economy running and businesses working. One of the most obvious lessons learnt was that digital transformation is no longer an option, but a necessity. Here we will see how the phenomenon has rocked even the most conservative workplaces and what to do to thrive in the digital sphere, even during challenging times.
Many businesses, small, medium and large alike, have intensified their use of technology, to buy, sell and interact with prospects, customers and internally with/ among employees, enhancing the use of different software such as conferencing platforms, e-commerce solutions, enterprise software (ERP, CRM). In fact, numbers confirm a growing interest for online purchases: In Italy, the first Western country to go on lockdown, online sales grew by 90% in February and March 2020 if compared to the same period in 2019 (Statista). The same trends can be observed elsewhere: “there’s been a 129% year-over-year growth in U.S. & Canadian e-commerce orders as of April 21 and an impressive 146% growth in all online retail orders (Forbes)”.
The need for technology and diverse kinds of software has increased markedly not only for companies selling physical products, but also for large corporations who now have hundreds, if not thousand, of employees working from home, who need more and more digital tools to perform their job. Even schools and universities are now resorting to new technologies, as their students cannot attend face-to-face lessons. As a result, all sorts of in-person meetings have been replaced by Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, to name only a few.
And apart from reduced in-person interactions, we also have fewer and fewer physical documents going from one place to the other, and more virtual transactions taking place in all realms. To confirm this general trend towards the acceleration of digitalization, we can look into an managerial opinion poll, where “58% [of people polled] expect to either “significantly” or “moderately” increase their annual technology budgets right now […], while 73% of IT operations and DevOps teams expect to either accelerate or maintain digital transformation spending through the global pandemic” (ZD net). And we will soon enough have other figures to confirm this trend.
If there was a lot of talking about Digital Transformation before coronavirus, it now became a matter of survival.
This would all be great: more digital resources and transactions are often considered key to optimizing time and resources. Without proper analysis, one could say that we’re now at a unique momentum towards digital transformation, aiming at a higher company efficiency and transaction speed. But as was the case before, this is not enough. Here, we will consider five points to watch out for in this momentum.
As we see, in this period of a somewhat forced and rushed digitalization, digital adoption became a crucial matter, the one factor that can guarantee a company’s survival and future success, as well as its promptness to respond to future crises. To make users efficiently and gladly adopt diverse software and platforms, we suggest adding a Digital Adoption Solution or Platform (DAS or DAP), such as Newired, to your systems. A DAS or DAP will empower users to learn even when they have no trainer present, making sure they know what to do and where to go, even when it’s their first time on a given platform. With them, you can add step-by-step tutorials, tooltips, images, videos, interactive questions… plenty of new and cool elements to help you manage the new contemporary challenges! See how they address the considerations presented above:
As a result of adding a DAS/DAP, you will see more independent and satisfied employees and customers, a higher ROI on your digital resources (especially if we’re talking about enterprise software) and revenues for your business (in case you have, for instance, an e-commerce in place). We can safely say that this is the best momentum to implement a DAS/ DAP, which will allow you to manage rollouts and training even remotely, and will plant seeds for future initiatives. The right time is now!
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