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How COVID-19 is pushing us toward digital transformation.

 
 
 
As the COVID-19 situation rapidly evolves, most businesses are facing urgent transformations to keep up with this new scenario. A greater part of these transformations is based on the digital transformation, which means the integration of digital technology into all business areas, and we’re not just talking about transforming in-person meetings into video calls, digital transformation goes way beyond that. Digital transformation has to do with changing services and products, adapting customer relationships, changing the company’s organizational structure, updating existing technologies and much more.
If the transformation was urgent before, now it has become a critical need. Let’s face it: even companies that already had a digital transformation in place or were working on it are facing COVID-19 issues, can you imagine the ones that were ignoring technology changes?
Here are some inspiring ways in which COVID-19 is pushing us into digital transformation so much faster than we’ve expected.
 

Customer Relationship

It’s hardly news people are staying home which means your clients aren’t leaving their houses, so the only way you can contact them is through digital channels.There’s a lot of competitors out there, so providing a great customer experience is not a matter of choice.If companies want to develop good relationships with their clients, implementing new ways to pay attention to customer needs like chatbots or creating new types of digital interfaces could help increase people safety and avoid human contact (information kiosks, for example)

Products and Services Transformation

While before Covid-19 companies had to adapt their services and products according to industry trends, with the radical market transformations, companies are seeing the need to reinvent and evolve their products and services based on technological possibilities. Even to those who were already working on digital transformation the situation calls for changes, which can be simple, like new pricing models or new types of platforms to promote companies' products or services

Organizational Structure

Having a flexible business structure has shown which companies were actually ready to send their employees home and make remote work a reality without much efforts. To those who didn't trust remote work before, COVID-19 is showing that this work model can bring great quality and productivity to businesses. Outsourcing services are also a way to approach digital transformation from an organizational perspective, and it can be a great solution for big companies but also for startups in the early stages. Contracting out software development companies can also be a way to draw innovation and help develop answers to technological issues.

Data Security and Privacy

Apart from being a great example of great business growth, Zoom is also a notable example when it comes to digital security. A bad example, unfortunately. Digital transformation is showing us that there are several things to consider when adopting digital solutions with data security and privacy are some of them. Data breaches and privacy issues can be fatal to business, that's why being aware of how security processes are implemented on your products and services should be top of mind.
Digital transformation is a constant process, which means not only these but all other business aspects should be undergoing constant transformations. Changing our companies can be an enormous challenge, but the benefits from being up to date with digital transformation are worth it. If we embrace technological changes as part of our business, we’ll be able to face not just the pandemic, but also every other challenge that we might encounter during our business journey.