Shifting to the new norms is the game changer, in the post covid-19 era.
Undoubtedly, the coronavirus outbreak has pushed the whole world into uncharted waters. The imperative turn to social distancing lifestyle has significantly changed critical areas of our lives, such as education, work, shopping, tech use, healthcare, public services, and entertainment as well as is dictating that everything must be done digitally, contactless and in record time.
In the wake of this public health crisis, it is more than certain that the most of those radical changes, in a post Covid-19 world, will become the new norms.
The world today is not only volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous but it is also hyper-connected. The acronym VUCAH is the new buzz world.
The global lockdown forced every individual to over-connect with one another digitally. We all agree that in 2020 the world became by far more digitally connected than ever before.
This hyper-connectivity is raising new opportunities, risks and challenges for individuals and organizations, since it increases the levels of stress, errors and burn-out around the world, putting under tremendous pressure in terms of time management, focus, concentration, and prioritization.
But hyper-connectivity implies hyper-security since by default constitutes higher security risks. Obviously, the more digital exposed you are the most cybersecurity risks you must manage. It is true that at the beginning of the crisis the rush to remote working raised new fresh security risks, but cybersecurity has always been one of the topmost concerns of both individuals and organizations. And the constant rise in the number of cyber incidents only adds on to such concerns, pushing cybersecurity to the forefront of organizational strategy and planning.
Millions of employees were required to work from their homes instead of their offices, meeting and transacting online based on digital connections, and facing the challenge of finding the balance between their personal and professional life.
Most organizations either have already shifted to remote working as the new norm rather than as an exception or allow hybrid working options, a mix of home and office, with workers choosing the most effective combination for them. But at the same time they focus on challenges such as the on boarding process, appropriate governance, performance management, improve engagement and commitment of their employees as well as to safeguard their corporate culture and enhance their cyber-security measures.
The most organizations, due to crisis, have totally shifted their meetings and events from face2face to virtual. It is more than certain that this kind of e-meetings and e-events have already become the new norm for organizations, saving time and money, and eliminating the reasons for daily commuting. Moreover, business travel will be less common but more mindful.
The most schools, colleges, universities, and even coaching centers have shifted their model from classroom & paper-based education to online education and e-learning providing a portion of their curriculum online and conducting classes and exams via videoconferencing tools.
Millions of students are learning today from home using such platforms. The debate between traditional vs virtual classrooms is not anymore which is better but how both can complement each other so that the biggest gainer is the student. Nevertheless, it is good to remember that the effectiveness of online learning varies amongst age groups.
For organizations though, it is more than certain, that e-learning is the new education norm, to train and up-skill their employees.
In the healthcare sector, digital becomes the new norm. We are witnessing radical advances provided by many private and public institutions today such as doctor-patient video chats, A.I. avatar-based diagnostics, and no-contact-based medication delivery.
In the government and public sectors, all over the globe, the digital transformation journey is continuing even more intensively, running significant projects and implementing initiatives for a myriad of reasons, of which the satisfaction and experience of a changing citizen is one and cost savings another, and having the digital citizen in mind. The combination of modern technology and the tech-savvy user has meant that people are now accustomed to using technology devices, such as mobile phones, tablets, and computers, to access information. In addition, the e-collaboration between public and private sectors becomes feasible.
Millions of consumers greatly shifted their behavior, from in-store to e-commerce shopping, and contactless delivery. E-Commerce and online shopping are becoming the new norm, having experienced remarkable growth over the last year especially for the retail market.
Personalization has been a major focus of businesses, since they have realized that customers are more likely to purchase products and services from brands that offer personalized experiences relevant to them. With AI being able to process excessive amounts of data, customer data platforms are created as a single source of customer information to help organizations to collect, combine and process those huge bulk of data, from sources like commercial customer data; citizen data; social media; and location tracking, providing valuable information about users’ behavior, interests, and preferences and help organizations shift from the Internet of Things (IoT) to the Internet of Behavior (IoB) era. In addition, it is vital to demonstrate a high level of security and protect the information they analyze.
Many organizations already use them extensively to increase their revenue and brand loyalty. However, hyper-personalization is the new norm, but it is essential to strike a balance between personalized offers and intrusiveness to avoid an adverse reaction from the consumer. Yet, this trend also raises ethical concerns, therefore, privacy laws will impact the way IoB is implemented, used, and scaled.
Apparently, Big data is getting bigger, with the multi-fold increase in usage of technology and digital tools as well as their respective huge volumes of generated data, we expect to see an exponential rise in the amount of data being transferred, collected, and processed. Nevertheless, the 5G networks, the next generation of mobile Internet connection and the WiFi 6, the next generation wireless standard, are already in place to provide higher speed on connectivity and processing, and lower latency.
Moreover, organizations have realized, during the crisis by the hard way, that anything that can be automated in an organization should be automated. The problem is bigger for the ones having legacy business processes that are not streamlined, creating bad customer experience and immensely expensive and extensive issues for them and their customers. Hyper-automation is clearly the new norm on business operations. To achieve that they are shifting to AI & RPA democratization by making it accessible to every user within the organization providing them AI & RPA based tools to see and identify patterns, make decisions, automate, predict, learn, and improve, as well as transforming radically the way they work and operate by:
· Optimizing their work by doing the same work more efficiently
· Redesigning their work by achieving the same work outputs with new combinations of technology and people
· Reimagining their work by achieving new or different work outcomes with new combinations of technology and people
Finally, circular economies will be the new norm. According to Gartner, circular economies are expected to replace linear economies in the next 10 years. The move from transactional relationships based on selling products to a model of production and consumption that involves sharing, leasing, reusing and recycling existing materials and products is gaining momentum as consumer and shareholder preferences shift toward sustainability. For those organizations which have adopted the API economy, by developing and providing your own APIs to your partners or consuming third party APIs on their portals, will be much easier to move to the circular economy as well.
As a matter of fact, many organizations have already started growing their digital ecosystems, providing a variety of complementary non-core services to their customers, in retail market mainly.
The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed changes that seemed unthinkable just a year ago. The adaption of those new norms will be a real game changer for not only businesses but also for individuals seeking opportunities.
Both our members in Hellenic CIO forum and our peers in Europe, agree that the adaption of those new norms will be a real game changer for not only businesses but also for individuals seeking opportunities.
Undoubtedly, CIO executives have the great challenge to make it happen, since tech is at the center of those new norms not only as a key-enabler but as the key-differentiator, in such a hyper-connected, volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment.