What has 2020 and the global pandemic taught us?
That many global organisations are pre digital enterprises; stuttering through their digital
transformation journeys and unable to weather the storming tides that the Coronavirus has
accelerated in their markets.
As the whole world moves online, this one digital truth has become self evident — those
who haven’t fully committed to being digital first, are left floundering in the remnants
of an organisation that is no longer fit for purpose.
It
may well be a decade old now but Marc Andreessen’s famous line that has never rung so true.
Software is not only eating the world but has already served dessert
and is now loading the dishwasher.
The pace of digitisation since our last report
has been rapid but is set to become exponential in the proceeding 5 years.
Covid-19 accelerated profound challenges for business leaders
around how to optimise human work in the digital workplace.
Combining the most effective ways of human/machine interaction, creating an agile, data driven
organisation and reimagining how and where workers perform their tasks has become the imperative.
You just have to look at how five years ago, a relative digital unicorn like Tik Tok,
has now revolutionised the way businesses sell to their customers by their mastery of AI
technologies.
There has been a significant acceleration of AI’s impact on our daily working lives and it
is increasingly seen as the engine powering the digital juggernaut.
Organisations that transfer a deep mastery of AI
into their mission critical business processes, look set to win big.
And if AI is the engine, then data is very much the
fuel for the journey; providing the insight and intelligence for business leaders
to take informed decisions about the future of their organisations, at scale.
But even with the trio of A’s ⁠— AI, Automation and Analytics,
there are no commercial silver bullets here.
On their own they don’t act as some incarnation of the 3 Musketeers,
swooping into town to clear up the mess left by ill conceived and under invested digital programs.
They are sophisticated and complex solutions
that naturally require detailed understanding and perfecting.
It’s been 4 years since our last report and in large part, we are all still HERE.
All still going to the workplace, all still adding value to our organisations
and in many tasks, all by ourselves!
So any preconceived notions that machines will eventually replace humans is wide of the mark,
with our research actually suggesting that machines will be very much our friends,
not our foes.
They will be our heavy lifters; saving our backs from data and task overload. They will
make workers happier; improving work/life balance and productivity.
And they will give greater insights into customer
persona allowing for an enriched, personalized user experience.
And when they can save bottom line too by automating processes and enhancing supply
chains, they truly are partners for life.
Technological advancement brings existential questions.
If machines are getting smarter and more capable, then where do we fit in?
It’s a fair question and one that leads both business leaders and employees to reassess
the role of purpose in the workplace.
They are seeking greater ethical leadership from their organisations; workplace safety,
fair pay and benefits, sustainable business practices, flexible attitudes towards working,
all of which score high with respondents in our report.
But there’s one crucial question every organization needs to be
asking themselves right now. And it’s simply is our organization fit for purpose in 2021?
And if so, are you confident it still will be in 2025?
Our report examines the ways successful organizations
have been winning at digital; how they have established an organisational mindset to continue
to reap the productivity rewards that agile digital competency can offer, and how these
factors will let them survive and thrive after the Great Covid Reset.