The ongoing pandemic has accelerated digital transformation and redefined its meaning from its pre-COVID-19 state as it turned out that there are no business continuity plans (BCPs) for global events such as pandemics, according to new research from Telstra.
Working with GlobalData, Telstra gathered data from more than 120 business leaders across Asia Pacific, Europe and the United States.
Results reveal that the COVID-19 crisis has prompted a once-in-a-generation technology shift towards face-to-face collaboration being conducted purely through video conferencing.
Findings also show that networks underpin technology to support the distributed and nomadic workforce and are crucial to ensuring a great user experience.
Businesses are recalibrating their digital transformation strategy, with 93% saying they have changed their IT priorities either incrementally, significantly, or dramatically. The top priority for respondents across all regions is to set up policies for their remote workforce.
Nearly one-tenth of firms did not have a BCP before COVID-19. Of those which did have a BCP in place, almost a third (29%) did not have plans in place to respond to an unexpected global event such as a pandemic.
In Southeast Asia and Australia and New Zealand (SEA and ANZ), 22% claimed to have a full BCP in place, demonstrating significant preparedness for responding to major events, including pandemics, ranking the highest among the regions.
Video conferencing and cloud-based contact centre solutions are some of the most transformative technologies to the enterprise. Almost all (98%) of respondents believe there will be “an increased reliance on video conferencing to replace face-to-face meetings post-COVID-19 recovery.”
Nearly half of respondents are now adopting a cloud-first contact centre strategy for improving end to end capabilities for speed and agility when serving customers. The sentiment is the strongest in North Asia at 57%, followed by SEA and ANZ at 52%.
Networks will play a more important role in connecting remote and mobile workers. Post-COVID-19, networks will need to be software-defined, cloud-ready, more automated and flexible.
