Facing the post-pandemic era with technology as a compass
ADVERSITY BREEDS INNOVATION. With the world slowly moving past the COVID-19 pandemic, companies today have to contend with doing business in a vastly different landscape, one that is shaped by various innovations and adaptations that have emerged from the crisis.
The usage of digital technology has reached critical mass, and there is no going back. In fact, the scale of the digital revolution is enough that at the start of the pandemic, according to a 2020 McKinsey Global Survey of executives, their companies have accelerated the digitization of their customer and supply-chain interactions and of their internal operations by three to four years. Meanwhile, the share of digital or digitally enabled products in their portfolios has accelerated by as much as seven years.
The change transformed how business was done from the supply chain management to customer interaction. And it came so quickly that companies in every industry were forced to adopt new technologies or be left behind.
It is understandable then that many companies feel lost in this new era of technological disruption.
“If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that there needs to be a leadership revolution to address an unprecedented reality. More than ever, technology plays a critical role in leaders reshaping the way we work, live, and in solving some of the world’s toughest challenges. Advances in robotics, AI, data and analytics now automate operations that offer precision and scale,” Sarah Chen, cofounder and managing partner, Beyond the Billion & The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, said in an article published by the World Economic Forum.
Ms. Chen noted that emerging technologies should be used to further build a shared purpose among companies and amplify the human insight and talent.
More information in this new age can help steer businesses towards new goals. Zachary Bogue, co-founder and managing partner, Data Collective, said that a leader’s access to new information is growing at a staggering rate.
“To lead effectively in the 2020s and beyond, businesses and governments must ingest, analyze and act upon this data in real-time. Unless well managed, however, flows of information cannot be used to guide decisions and can even hinder leadership,” he said.
Mr. Bogue said in the World Economic Forum article that new tools can combine greater access to data and better platforms to view, summarize, and analyze it. For instance, satellite start-ups provide not only greater temporal resolution, but also change detecting algorithms to identify important developments over vast terrain.
He went on to cite how machine learning can help enable cutting- edge analysis of streaming data, while also providing data catalogs to help make sense of convoluted large company database architectures built up over time, or that customized internetof-things networks sense and report inputs across distributed networks, but also automatically predict problems.
“Good information is the foundation of sound leadership – we need more data, but also the right technology to put it to work,” he said.
In the same article, Laure Forgeron, managing director – head P&C Facultative EMEA, Swiss Reinsurance Company, expanded on this by noting how in her industry, access to large amounts of data can be utilized in decision-making processes to develop the business and their people.
“We all take decisions every day in our personal or professional lives, some based on instinct, experience, or pattern. Recognizing and enhancing our decision pattern based on data insights will be paramount to taking better decisions more efficiently in the future,” she said.
“I have no doubt that successful digital transformation must go hand in hand with the upskilling of my team in data literacy together with a high level of empowerment.”
According to a recent PwC Pulse Survey, 60% of C-suite executives polled cited digital transformation as the most important growth driver for their businesses, with many of them increasing investments to fill job vacancies and enhance the digital capabilities of their team, aimed towards accelerating progress toward other high priorities such as increasing agility, developing new products and services for ever-demanding consumers, improving supply chain resilience, honing pricing strategies and pursuing M&A.
“One notable difference from our past surveys centers around crossC-suite collaboration. Sharpening talent strategies and applying digital transformation across the enterprise to more areas from tax efficiency to pricing strategies have become unified, businesswide priorities. That’s a marked shift from the focus on specific functional goals we’ve seen in the past,” the PwC survey titled “Executive views on business in 2022” noted.
“Executives have always told us that investing in digital transformation is the smartest way forward. This year, many plan to build on those investments and, with talent in short supply, it will be all the more critical to get the most out of digital investments. Digital capability is at the heart of execution, whether it’s increasing supply chain resilience, rolling out new products and services for consumers, or shifting to investorgrade ESG reporting in preparation of new disclosure requirements,” it added. —
"If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that there needs to be a leadership revolution to address an unprecedented reality. More than ever, technology plays a critical role in leaders reshaping the way we work, live, and in solving some of the world’s toughest challenges. Advances in robotics, AI, data and analytics now automate operations that offer precision and scale."