How Technology is changing the way we work

We talked to several industry leaders to find out how they think technology will continue to help businesses transform long after the pandemic is over.

“The transition from a pre Covid-19 to a post Covid-19 world will not be seamless. It will require the up-skilling of your entire workforce, as people are finding themselves in new roles, new work situations, and new business operating models. They will need greater resilience and organizations will need to establish new working-practices, processes and protocols and may need new tech. Establishing sound output-focused performance management and productivity levels will be required going forward, but the resulting workplace agility will deliver greater flexibility and work-life-balance for all.

Technology has once again become the enabler of another social revolution. This time, potentially creating freedom, wealth and quality-of-life for all.”

"Social distancing measures caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have had a disruptive impact on the workforce and on the entire organization as many employees are forced to work remotely. This obligation has led to a shift from a centralized workplace to a decentralized one. This does not come free of charge for companies as they have had to invest in new ways of working in a distributed environment. Digitization and resource virtualization help companies to cope with this. Moreover, the emergence of decentralized workplaces has increased the need for a holistic best practice framework where businesses can find strategic value."

“The current Coronavirus pandemic has forced many companies to fast-track changes, which they should have made a long time ago, both in terms of technology and organizational culture. Companies that have invested in technology such as cloud computing, online platforms and virtual working environments, and have created decentralised organizations where leaders trust employees to work from anywhere, have generally felt much less of an impact of the Covid-19 crisis.

Companies that have not done this yet and are now trying to fast-track these transformations will realize that this is not that difficult: the technology and tools are all available, and the shift in organisational culture can only be a benefit in the long-run. All they need is the will and innovative thinking to reimagine how their business operates.”

“The world doesn’t need more IT experts – it needs human experts. The pre-COVID tech existed and we were already using it, we just didn’t know how to integrate work and home or where those boundaries sat. The greatest corporate disruption of the century has been led by a virus, not a ground-breaking CEO."

“Covid-19 has served as a wakeup call for organizations around the world to accelerate digital transformation. The new normal will be very different moving forward as direct human interaction will be reduced and replaced with digital interface and contactless. Organizations need to reconfigure their digital transformation strategy in lieu of this reality and embrace it at scale to win more customers over. As the saying goes, "There is sun after the rain."

It’s evident that this pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation of many organizations. Companies and their workforce have had to adapt and implement various changes and the reality is that these changes are here to stay.