أهمية التحول الرقمي بالنسبة للشركات

The economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic are far-reaching and at a time when the world has just started to return to normalcy, we will have to wait to understand the full-spectrum of economic implications of the pandemic that forced the world’s economy to shut-down completely for almost as much as three months.

However, if we are to look at the brighter side of the otherwise bleak economic situation, certain sectors have come out even stronger; “Tech Sector” is certainly leading the way, which didn’t just survive but thrive during the global pandemic.

"إذا نظرنا إلى أحدث قائمة بالأعمال المزدهرة في ظل الأزمة العالمية، فإننا نرى نمطًا مثيرًا للاهتمام، حيث إن جميع الشركات الكبرى تقريبًا من قطاع التكنولوجيا بما في ذلك شركات مثل Amazon وAlphabet وMicrosoft وApple وTesla وغيرها. وحتى الشركات التي لا تعمل بشكل مباشر في مجال التكنولوجيا، فهي مدفوعة بشكل غير مباشر بالتكنولوجيا مثل سامسونج بيولوجي، أو علي بابا للمعلومات الصحية. القليل من القطاعات الأخرى التي دخلت القائمة هي من القطاعات الصيدلانية (وهو أمر واضح بالنظر إلى مطاردة لقاح كوفيد-19). وهذا أمر مثير للاهتمام لأنه يُظهر بوضوح مستقبل الاقتصاد العالمي وكيف سنمضي قدمًا في حقبة ما بعد كوفيد-19."

The above-mentioned list only further reinforces the need for digital transformation initiatives for businesses; forcing companies to re-evaluate their business models and integrate digital technologies to sustain and grow in the new economic model.

As I said earlier, we are still in the middle of the crisis with no definite timeline for getting over the emergency situation. This also means that we will still have to wait before we can estimate the complete financial impact of the crisis for the business network. However, as the world’s open up (albeit precautionary measures); I believe this is the time for refining the operational efficiencies, re-evaluate the business structure, and initiate the digital transformation process to accommodate the increasing need of mobility.

“While the pandemic has already set the precedent for businesses to embark on the digital transformation journey, it’s important for businesses to realize how digital transformation itself has changed over the past few months. While the pre-pandemic digital transformation was driven by customer-centric needs, the post-pandemic transformation journey more directed towards efficient communication & collaboration, greater agility for systems & processes, and increased workforce health and safety concerns.”

What this means is that today digital transformation is even a greater challenge, where companies are required to adapt to ever-increasing challenges in real-time and design agile business processes with the ability to adapt new technologies faster to ensure business continuity. And even with even more challenging transformational journey, it is quite clear that without digital transformation, there is no future for businesses.

From relevant to critical

There are various advantages to reap from the digital transformation journey, where businesses that do implement the transformation gain a higher competitive advantage over companies that haven’t integrated the digitalization process. And as the businesses prepare for the future, the need for digital transformation has only shifted from being relevant to a critical step.

Businesses need to undertake a strategic transformational journey, digitalizing the business systems and processes to come up with more efficient operations, and design agile systems and processes capable to adapt to ever-changing market dynamics.