Читать книгу Building a Digital Future - Lipi Sarkar - Страница 24

Digital technology connects people and machines to provide an experience that no one envisaged a decade back, like watching a movie at home, buying a car online, banking services without visiting a bank, to name a few. This is all possible due to advancement in technology and quest to provide a better customer experience by businesses—by continuously finding the right solution and investing in technology, which is a continuous journey!

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the human race and businesses like never before; there is competition for survival, whether it is for people or businesses, as the pandemic has tested companies in 2020 for their existence irrespective of their size and sector.

Countries went into lockdown for the first time in modern history. All non-essential businesses were shut. This has put IT/Digital in the spotlight like never before. Some businesses could not operate due to lockdown, for example, airlines, travel, and hospitality, while others thrived, like Amazon and PayPal. However, other retail companies without digital DNA found it challenging to survive as they could not function due to their lack of digital presence.

Primark is one of the biggest upscale apparel chains in Europe, but during the COVID-19 pandemic it was in the news and social media for its $650 million monthly revenue down to $0 due to lockdowns across the world. As Primark did not have an online store, the impact has been harder than for other retailers and it had to close down 375 stores within 12 days.

Like Primark, many other businesses will be adapting to shifts in customer behavior, and consumption patterns will guide many aspects of how business models get transformed post-COVID-19. It is time to realign business models!

Besides the impact of the pandemic accelerating digitization for some industries, some other trends will continue to play out:

 Rapid introduction of digital operating models.

 Digitizing value chains.

 Ever-increasing power of social media.

 Connected customer experience.

 Application of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

 Rise of privacy and regulations.

 Cybersecurity and threat intelligence, which is fuelling business performance.