Tag: digital transformation

As the COVID-19 crisis redefines how economies and society as a whole function, human ingenuity has sparked a wave of innovation set to be the blueprint for the decades to come. According to the 2021 Trends, organisations will have the opportunity to map out new territory as they embrace new strategies, services and experiences to meet evolving human needs.

A global pandemic and the ensuing lockdown implemented in South Africa disrupted businesses across most sectors, putting small and medium sized businesses, in particular, under immense pressure. If 2020 has taught us one thing it is the extent to which we have come to rely on the internet.

As companies increasingly invest in new technologies, one thing is clear: technology is everywhere, but value is not. The return on investment (ROI) is not as expected. According to new research that we have released, today’s business leaders are deploying new technologies in pockets, or silos without effectively scaling them across the organisation to realise the full benefits.

If there is one thing 2020 has shown, it’s that the late Romantic poet Robert Burns was right, when in the 1700s he wrote, 'The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry'. COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on our ability to predict the 'what’s next' factor in our business environments and this year has seen businesses scramble from Plan A to Plan B, before working their way through the rest of the alphabet.

Transformation and innovation make 2020 a year to remember as pandemic catapults new digital service offerings to elevated heights. We have embraced 2020 with a strong focus on people and health and safety; innovative technology and finding solutions to keep customer service at an all-time high.

All of us have witnessed immeasurable changes in 2020, with disruptions to the way we live our lives and do business. Customer communication is no exception. While business was already embracing digital, COVID-19 only accelerated this transformation. 

Few would have predicted that the first year of the third decade of the millennium would be turned on its head by a global pandemic. What was to be ‘twenty plenty’ became an anomaly with events that went beyond the realm of normal expectations and changed the way we work, live and play.

The national lockdown forced a large contingency of the South African workforce to work from home and as it is somewhat of a new notion, it had its fair share of challenges. Yet recent studies have shown the shift to remote working has led to improved productivity for 29% of organisations.

Digitalisation was a transformative trend sweeping across industries even before the global COVID-19 pandemic changed the way we work, shop and interact. Society's ongoing transition to smart and sustainable living leverages information and communication technologies (ICT) to improve the quality of life and unlock greater convenience. And ubiquitous and seamless access to digital services underpins this trend, with the digitalisation of banking a core enabler of the emerging smart economy.

Read our exclusive cover story titled THE SMART ECONOMY | HOW IS CUSTOMER DIGITALISATION DRIVING BANKING CHANGE? by Wouter Kielblock, Chief Operations Officer, Corporate and Institutional Banking, Investec, as well a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics in the December/January 2020/21 edition of BusinessBrief.