With the pandemic wreaking havoc on the economy across the globe, how can a business survive in such a crisis? While so many employees were laid off and businesses foreclosed, many flourished and grew. So how did they do it? One word- technology. We’ve brought together the experts in different niches who managed to make their businesses flourish during the pandemic to show us how technology is helping businesses in this time of crisis.
Digital Technologies Transforming Businesses
“Businesses around the world rely on technology during a pandemic to ensure the safety of employees, facilitate information distribution, and maintain continuity. Companies use virtual private networks, collaboration tools, and cloud technologies to manage remote working seamlessly. In addition, technology brings video conferencing and networking together for digital interactions. Combining the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and machine learning has allowed companies to delegate routine tasks to robots and supervise them remotely. Furthermore, through continuous learning and predictive analysis, machine learning algorithms ensure production and supply chain efficiency by processing data and improving themselves. Also, blockchain and sensor-based tracking have been useful in tracking transactions and product deliveries online. The growth of e-commerce has allowed retailers to maintain their businesses by using online payment methods for contactless transactions. Content management systems have tools that enable online transactions, help you manage inventory, and make order fulfillment a seamless experience. Additionally, companies use social media management tools to deliver content and interact with customers and followers from a single platform. Similarly, multimedia content creation tools offer graphic design libraries and video templates useful in strengthening a company’s brand.”
Harriet Chan, Co-founder & Marketing Director CocoFinder
Contactless Movement is now Possible
“In many parts of the world, technology has also allowed safe movement. Self-driving cars, robots, and drones are being used to transport important goods all over the world. People are turning to online shopping and ordering to preserve social distance. Furthermore, new business technology is assisting online stores, grocery aggregators, and restaurants in making contactless deliveries. E-wallets and other digital payment methods have paved the way for a fully contactless distribution ecosystem. Customers place an order, pay for it online, and have it delivered to their door by an employee. Instead of hand-to-hand deliveries, more businesses are focused on picking and dropping items at designated places.”
Tony Kelly, CEO at CameraGroove
Remote Jobs made Easier
“To handle remote working seamlessly, companies use technology such as virtual private networks, collaboration tools, and cloud conferences. More workers are now able to successfully adjust to working from home. Cisco, for example, improves its Webex software to help companies and provides them with support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Team chat applications like Slack and project management software like Trello have also made it easier for teams to operate remotely. Technology not only allows remote employees to be more flexible at work, but it also allows them to save time on their commute.”
Tanya Zhang, Co-founder of Nimble Made
Digitally Conferencing and Advising
“Technology is putting video conferencing and networking together for multimedia communications in this worldwide epidemic. In-person activities have been replaced by virtual events. Under the name Digital Connect, the Google Cloud Next ’20 conference was streamed live online. Collison, a North American tech gathering, followed, with the aid of digital technologies, going interactive. Fintso is a web-based financial software that assists independent financial advisors in efficiently communicating with their clients. The National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom has made Microsoft’s Teams video conferencing tools accessible to all of its employees. They communicate with patients through instant messaging and audio/video calls from anywhere. In China, several doctors have begun to use Zoom for online consultations.”
Dr. Pooneh Ramezani, CEO, Co-Founder Dr. Brite
Promoting Economic Resilience by Innovation
“COVID-19 has sparked a wave of rapid digitalization and automation in almost every industry. Innovation, eCommerce, video/remote working, and cybersecurity are all interconnected in our cloud of topics and clusters. And these are intertwined in their ability to drive innovative and fast
responses to the challenges posed by the paradigm shift to an online-first environment. Companies that had a small online presence prior to the pandemic were able to rapidly establish minimum viable commodity online stores in a matter of weeks, rather than years, thanks to advancements in off-the-shelf eCommerce platform capabilities. Customers soon adjusted to the transition to eCommerce. According to BCG statistics, the use of online grocery shopping tripled in the first months of the pandemic, with the majority of those shoppers doing so for the first
time. And after the pandemic was over, about a third said they would do their grocery shopping online. According to a BCG B2C eCommerce report released in August, online shopping increased by 39% during the pandemic. These trends are likely to continue, as 79 percent of consumers said they expect to shop online as often as or more often in the future.”
Dusan Stanar, Founder & CEO of VSS Monitoring
Remote Work, In-Office Administration & Audience Outreach
“These are just some of the most obdurate features of a business that are properly carried out by technology during pandemic crises. There are few other features where technology has been very helpful during COVID-related lockdowns. While the internal processes keep on functioning even without in-person attendance, I would specifically like to put emphasis on those tech businesses which provide PaaS and SaaS services, for that matter. For example, My own business, which is Signaturely.com, is a SaaS module business. Since we provide legal eSignatures for all types of documents online, our business keeps functioning as it should during the entire pandemic lockdown. Even supply chain management and logistics didn’t suffer much for e-commerce platforms around the world. In fact, 52% population globally relied on e-commerce retailers for their needs during pandemic-enforced social distancing and lockdowns. That is how technology is helpful in many ways during a global pandemic crisis.”
Will Cannon, CEO of Signaturely, a digital signature providing business
Digital Tools to Connect with Clients and Customers
“Technology adoption has saved around 1/3rd of the global businesses from closing down forcefully. This is how technology is impacting businesses in this pandemic. Technologies are playing an incredible role in assisting businesses in all the ways possible. While COVID adversely affects every business vertical, technology is helping them effectively continue their trades and operations. For instance, software companies are utilizing digital tools to coordinate with clients and schedule internal meetings, adopting virtualization i.e., cloud-based services to access work resources anywhere, anytime, and continue business operations. Besides, other business verticals such as eCommerce sectors, Restaurants, and retailers now seamlessly offering online booking, and delivery services with cashless payments through digital platforms. Technologies are helping Digital Marketers seamlessly to establish their brand awareness through various advertising tactics, gaining leads and eventually increasing their business growth.”
Fay Hao, Clooms