Many organizations are currently taking stock of the coronavirus crisis with a view to the 2021 budget. The measures you have had to take to deal with coronavirus, both within your organization and for your customers, have been costly, and only now are the financial consequences becoming painfully clear. These are initially incidental, but there is a possibility that there will be structural effects that will bring with them the necessary challenges.
TransitieProfs is a strong advocate for countercyclical investments.
Now that cutbacks have become inevitable, it is essential to invest at the same time.
I present three arguments below to support this assertion.
‘The 1.5-meter society creates urgency for further digitization of services’
You may have noticed that even though your premises may have been temporarily closed, there was no let-up in the number of questions from customers or clients. In fact, the greater distance between people seemed to create a greater need for communication. This makes it wise to quickly accelerate the digitization of your services. This will enable you to maintain good contact with your customers or clients.
‘Your organization is switching to a different way of working’
In fact, your organization was already in motion and wanted to be able to work more flexibly. Due to the coronavirus, working from home quickly became urgent. You probably took swift action by, for example, enabling digital meetings via Microsoft Teams or other platforms.
But this is just the beginning. Your employees are probably happy that they can now have more physical contact with each other and with your customers again. But they have also experienced the benefits of mobile working and have therefore become aware of new digital possibilities. The "spirit of digital innovation" is now out of the bottle, and your people will increasingly demand more of it.
‘Financial uncertainties heighten the need for information’
In recent months, it has become painfully clear what impact COVID-19 has had on your finances. Higher costs on the one hand and reduced income on the other. This has undermined the certainties you were used to, causing unrest among you and your financial advisors. The loss of these certainties may even indicate impending system changes with potentially major consequences for your business operations.
In that context, it is of the utmost importance that your information provision is aligned with your new information needs. You want to identify as quickly as possible where things are going wrong in the operation and where "bleeders" are occurring, so that you can act quickly to absorb and manage these changes.
Embark on the path to digital progress by taking control of your IT.
If you share the above with your head of IT or CIO, there is a good chance that they will see these as significant obstacles to digitization. The complexity and resulting lack of flexibility in your IT environments are hampering your ability to innovate. You have most likely ended up in what we call "the vicious circle of lack of control."
The best countercyclical investment you can make right now is to start a management process together with TransitieProfs, beginning with a workshop on management.
Are you curious about your opportunities to really advance digitization in your organization? Contact us for no-obligation advice.
Author: Martijn Stekelenburg – TransitieProfs
