Business continuity and employee experiences are driving a reprioritization of strategies for businesses gearing up for the post disruption era.
Have your work arrangements and rapport with peers and colleagues been impacted in recent weeks? Whether you are an employee, a manager or an entrepreneur, continuous improvisation has been part of the shift of the ongoing pandemic.
As we adapt to the new normal, it’s time for a conversation on rethinking strategies.
To begin with, remote working environments have become the norm. Business ecosystems that were oriented mainly towards enabling better customer experiences are realizing the need to strike a balance between planning for business continuity and enhancing internal and employee work experiences, in order to overcome current challenges.
Taken out of the controlled environment of corporate office spaces, businesses are now looking towards a whole new set of tools - to collaborate, monitor, supervise and assist workforces. All of these have a significant impact on business productivity.
Therefore, if we are to successfully transition a mobile workforce, there are three key areas employees require support for: increased communication, enhanced accessibility and expand self-service.
The challenge to achieve this isn’t trivial. Frankly, even well-known digital leaders have come up short in light of an escalation in the volume of users. For example, Netflix, the popular paid streaming network has had to reduce its video quality in multiple markets*, including Europe, India, Australia and Latin America, to simply handle the bandwidth demands, as stay at home measures lead to a spike in subscribers.
Similarly, in corporate environments, organizations are being forced to rethink core objectives, customer delivery commitments, resources and infrastructure their employees would require to get accustomed to.
Today, even a bare necessities list is fairly substantive starting with cloud ready networks, to VPN, file sharing systems, messenger apps, videoconferencing capabilities, enhanced encryption, RPA assistants, etc all based on the availability of highly reliable Internet access.
According to the ‘Gartner 2020 Strategic Road Map for Business Continuity Management’**, organizations are susceptible to being outpaced in their ability to accommodate the complexity of additional threats, and the need to ‘provide 24/7 technology services to support business needs and customer-facing services’.
With business continuity and a culture of organizational resilience as a core guiding principle, enterprises will need to quickly integrate and align themselves across the entire spectrum of their operations.
But do we know what the future might hold?
If there is one thing we have learnt from the recent challenges, it is that we can take nothing for granted.
In a world where online platforms and digital engagements take on a primary role, all elements starting from the supply chain management, to IT resources, employee experiences and customer engagements will need to be reframed.
The time has come to shift from a crisis management mindset to a remote-first culture, that places business continuity at the core of corporate objectives and customer commitments.