by Alison Krumm
The most important consideration in business is cost-effective operations. With the rise of COVID-19, this has become much more difficult as business has to cut back more and more to make any profit at all.
Many industry leaders are weighing in, and there are a huge number of incredibly future-forward suggestions – finally? – coming from every corner of global business.
Jitender Batra advocates for digital transformation in Publicis Sapient’s article “COVID-19: Navigating the impact to your business”. Oliver Wyman acknowledges that short term actions won’t mitigate the risks to your business, referring to manufacturing industries, but supporting the point that Batra makes on the importance of a long-term strategy. Economists have weighed the value of human life against the impacts of COVID-19 on the global economy and performed cost-vs-benefit analyses on the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s interesting that now, after all the time we’ve spent immersed in such flexible and powerful technology and apps, that the push to advance has come from such a medieval source.
Taking a leaf out of digital transformation’s book:
Digital transformation seems to be a buzzword right now – along with the overused “pivot” – because businesses need to be kept connected, effective, and profitable through the economic fluctuation and workforce insecurity of current times.
The Media Development Investment Fund reinforces the values that business should be embracing while we change the game:
Save money, be transparent, know your purpose, make the change, and protect your employees.
This has been mentioned before and will be mentioned again. Aligning your business practices to these key tenets of the new business model is critical. Thoreau says, “Simplify, simplify.” We may not have a solid blueprint of where we’re going, but being as light and agile as possible while we go there is key.
Why digital transformation matters, and how to use it to simplify business models:
1. Global connectedness is available, leverageable, and affordable. You can grow your network of service providers and customers almost anywhere, by simply and quickly activating your teams in new and existing markets.
2. The digitisation and security of information have been arranged, tested, and proven by industry leaders. All global business can follow suit, without the risks that were present when remote teams or temporary workers accessed company information in the past.
3. Small businesses, in the age of startups, have a marked advantage in the digital transformation model. This is why your team, although you may require a great deal of manpower, needs to be leaner and more flexible to really embrace an agile way of working.
4. Your main customer base in a few years – the connected, digital, always-on generation – will expect far more personalised, flexible, efficient service. Give it to them by building a need-based, flexible, efficient team.
5. In the days of AI and Analytics (that’s right now, for anyone who hasn’t picked up on it) we can track, measure, analyse, and forecast almost anything. Robotics automation can help you simplify human resources, finance, and more, and your hiring and contracting processes don’t need to be hindered by your outdated processes.
Simplify your organisation by letting technology take over the complexity. Simplify your structures by letting gig-workers take on the needs-based roles in your organisation.
Where should you begin?
From Publicis Sapient, we gain some insight into the next steps to take to ensure that business is ready for digital transformation – which also prompts the addition of gig-workers to supplement and improve your workforce effectiveness.
Step 1:
Assess the business’ digital maturity. Understanding how to transform, where the pitfalls lie, and which areas will present challenges in the new digital model with a contingent workforce is critical. The aim of this is to ensure a smoother transition with fewer hurdles to optimising current processes and driving better business.
Innovation is simpler when you have your ducks in a row, and so is stripping down to the essentials so that you can thrive through economic stress.
Step 2:
Leading out of step 1, use the analysis available in new advanced performance management technologies to identify where to increase efficiencies, prioritise projects and objectives, and help to reduce spend as you go.
Step 3:
With the first two steps in mind, put your plan into action and ensure that the rollout addresses the COVID-19 stressors and regulations first, but allows a long-term plan to be followed to change the model on a semi-permanent to permanent basis.
What is absolutely non-negotiable now is prioritising and improving business efficiency, and the only way to effectively ensure that business survives the doldrums is to strip out the superfluous costs and processes, embrace the available technology, and build a network of reliable, effective workers who can provide the on-demand services you need when you need them.