2020 Review – Accelerated Digital Transformation – #2

Accelerated Digital Transformation

Hope you enjoyed reading the first part of the Year in Review about Black Swans and managing risks. I ended the first part with a thought on the upside of risks. Let us continue with the positive thought and examine the positive impact of the pandemic. The first thing that comes to my mind is that Covid-19 has significantly accelerated digital transformation and adoption.

One of the popular social media polls that went viral during 2020 asked readers who was the biggest driver and change agent of the digital transformation initiatives. Most people chose Covid-19 over other options such as the CEO, CIO / CTO and Chief Digital Officers. Some people could have created this poll in jest, but it underscores the point.

Underlying Factors responsible

Covid-19 has universally hastened the adoption of technology and accelerated digital transformation initiatives. There are a couple of underlying factors why the pandemic was able to achieve that which the experts and professionals could not.

Change Management and TINA

The first factor of the increased rate of digital adoption was that there was simply no other option. Even though the coronavirus surfaced in 2019, most organizations did not imagine the threat to be so serious until March 2020. By this time, the principle of TINA – There Is No Alternative – had kicked in. We had to rapidly reconfigure all aspects of the physical world into it’s digital equivalents. Zoom became a verb and is now to meeting what Google is to search. However, that is just the tip of the iceberg of digital transformation.

The unprecedented periods of extended lockdown and ongoing remote work and life have impacted all walks of work, society and life as we knew it. Education, healthcare, entertainment, shopping, meeting, fun and socializing – everything found it’s digital equivalents. People who swore by the physical world (and still do), also had to adopt the new lifestyle. There was simply no alternative. Here are the Google Search trends for “Digital” during the last 2 years across the world. The spike in March 2020 is remarkable and demonstrates how the world looked for Digital.

Driving Digital Transformation in Organizations

Of course, the discussion around driving change and digital transformation in organizations is far more nuanced. It is not a straightforward matter of narrating stories about the TINA principle and hoping for change. The world of technology and computing follows precise rules. However, this is not true of complex systems that involve people. Driving change is one of the most perplexing puzzles for management and despite the pandemic as a catalyst, it continues to be a challenge.

Here is a snapshot of a discussion during a Financial Times event earlier during the year organized by Digital Legal Exchange. It highlights the complexity of managing change and emerging trends from the latest research on the subject.

Technological Advances Under the Hood

The spurt in digitalization could not have been possible if the underlying technology would not have been in place. In fact, most (if not all) of the examples of accelerated digital transformation and adoption involve pre-existing technologies. All these technologies and even software and applications were launched well before the pandemic.

This is quite interesting from the perspective of adoption of digital. It leads us to question why the adoption was so low earlier when the required technology was available? The question about the future direction is even more interesting. The products that have been or are being developed in response to the needs of the New Normal are yet to become mainstream. The future is indeed very exciting, and anything but certain!

Outlook for 2021

We are at a very interesting juncture from the perspective of the two cohorts, that you saw in the video above. There is one group of people that are longing to go back to the Old Normal. The prospect of the real and physical world appeals to their sensibilities. They believe that it is only a matter of time before things will go back to the old normal.

On the other hand, there is another group that believes that we have already stepped into the New Normal. It only takes few weeks to form new habits and several months of habit formation is not easily reversible. This group has jumped on to the bandwagon of change and believes it is here to stay.

Only time will tell what happens next. Just as 2020 proved us all wrong, it will be foolhardy to make predictions. However, one thing is certain. The world will not remain the same. Several industries and aspects of life and society will be transformed permanently and beyond recognition. Instead of debating about the future outlook, maybe we can focus our energy on identifying, creating and adapting to the new possibilities that lie ahead of us in the New Normal.

Year In Review 2020

Check out the master article for the Year in Review 2020 that contains links to all the other posts in the series. Bookmark the page to read more about each of the 20 thoughts from the past year and lessons for 2021.

About The Author

Rajiv Maheshwari is a business and start-up advisor, and the co-founder of From The Experts Mouth. He is a management professional with over 25 years of experience, and worked as CEO for a decade, and in leadership roles with NYSE listed companies such as Accenture and WNS.

He is a Chartered Accountant and MBA (Director’s Merit List from IIM Bangalore) and an autodidact, who is on the path of self-directed life long learning and sharing. He is a thought leader, author and keynote speaker and has developed several frameworks to bridge the gap between academia and industry.