Digitalization, A.C.E (After Covid Era)

A quick thank you to all my friends in industry and consulting who took the time to share their perspectives.

It is official now, physical is optional, digital is essential. Digital is everywhere, helped along by an unlikely (and undesirable) collaborator – Covid 19.

Every crisis, big or small, needs coping mechanisms. Some of these are temporary and go away once the crisis has passed. Others tend to become a part of life in some shape or form. For example, 9/11 resulted in many changes to airport security that are still in place. However, mini pandemics like the Swine Flu had little long term impact while the world wars saw people going to back to “normal” life once the crisis had passed. So if city skylines were lit by Anti-Aircraft guns and blackouts during the wars, these disappeared post war.

Predicting when the pandemic will finally abate is a fool’s errand. People can guess, studies can predict, but no one knows. And whether life will change irrevocably after Covid or not, only time will tell. Covid lockdowns mean that we are all using PPE, social distancing, buying online, buying necessities while avoiding luxuries, and working from home; office spaces are being downsized while employee pyramids are being “optimized” to fit the new operating model. Are these changes permanent, or will they disappear from the scene post pandemic, like masks in the time of Swine flu or like normalcy comes back after a war remains to be seen.

One thing that Covid has done, probably irrevocably, is demonstrated once and for all the utility of Digital tools and technologies. A new Digital normal may be in place that will outlast the pandemic. Digitalization ideas and initiatives that only a few months back were topics of interminable board / conference room discussions, turf wars and political jostling for visibility stakes, have gotten fast tracked and implemented (or almost) over the last few months.

Why and how did this happen? How did initiatives that were slowly winding their way through corporate corridors paying obeisance to each passerby, suddenly blow past every obstacle and reach the finish line? Here are a few answers as to how that happened:

1. Significant Business disruption due to physical movement constraints means that there is a Compelling reason / business case for going Digital. Faced with complete loss of revenues with unchanged cost structure in short term, businesses have had no choice but to explore Digital to replace physical.

2. Leadership, sponsorship and mindshare of Boards, CEOs and everyone else down the chain, has put digital initiatives on center stage. There is complete alignment across the organization.

3. Ownership of “Digital” has been the subject of many a turf war between business and IT folks vying to wear the “Digital crown”. With businesses in crisis, Collaboration and Cooperation towards Common goals have replaced competition and jockeying for credit.

4. For long, Digital initiatives got stalled, slowed and delayed by business teams attempting to pilot Digital initiatives without active ownership and participation of IT. New found urgency to successfully design and implement initiatives has meant that IT is no longer getting short shrift in the search for the Digital holy grail. The crisis has set aside such unrealistic efforts in service of larger organizational goals.

5. The crisis has resulted in tight coupling between Digital and Business objectives. Organizations have neither the time & money nor the luxury of a benign business environment where initiatives can take a life of their own, meandering into bloated time and cost budgets, with no end in sight. Time, effort and spends on Digital initiatives are now totally focused on delivering outcomes. Outcomes are being strictly monitored on milestone basis, and it is not unusual at all to see CEOs of large companies monitoring such initiatives directly.

6. Latest and greatest technology and vendors are being put through the one test that matters, the “agniparishka” of the “use case”. What will you do with this fancy technology? How will you use it? This is resulting in tremendous of clarity of thought and deed which is required to pilot the design and implementation of Digital initiatives.

While it is true that post Covid, physical will make a comeback and to that extent Digital will cede some of its newly acquired territory, it is to be expected that many initiatives will stay and a hybrid model will emerge. It is also true that post Covid while many companies will go back to their old ways of dealing with Digital, some would have learnt their lessons and will reap commensurate rewards.