After a year of shocks, businesses are looking to the future, with unpredictability now baked into the thought processes at both board and staff level, taking a simple guess on how business will operate in the future seems a foolhardy behaviour.
The last year need not be seen as either a waste or a missed opportunity, though.
Darren Clarke, Head of Customer Success, said that one key lesson is that IT and data systems, thought of more broadly as ‘digitisation’, can help businesses survive and thrive even as the ground shifts beneath them.
Clarke himself comes from a financial services background and so has already seen radical transformation.
“I saw at first hand a lot of business models go from paper-based to very tech-focused processes: laptop-based and software-based. Seeing that sparked an interest in me in the power of technology to drive change,” he said.
Clarke said that the level of digitisation in an organisation – that is to say, how prepared it is to deal with customers through modern and efficient digital processes – is highly variable. Some do a lot, some less. Almost all, though, have at least dipped a toe in the water.