I hate that term. I really do. Who's to say what is "normal". It is a decidedly relative term. But we CAN say without any hesitancy that the post-COVID-19 society will represent significant change for the vast majority of people, largely due to the accelerated adoption of existing technologies.
For some of us, we can remember a world without mobil phones. Activities that we all take for granted today, such as getting immediate directions from where we are to the nearest gas station, were unfathomable. You had to plan directions BEFORE you left, otherwise suffer the embarrassment of stopping somewhere to ask strangers for directions. Post COVID, I think we can expect an even more accelerated pace of innovation across virtually every industry and lifestyle. After all, much of the technology that will usher in "the new normal" already exists, the frameworks are in place, just waiting for business applications and customer adoption. Prime areas that will be the first movers of new technology innovation include:
Although these changes will ubiquitous, there will be some industries that will be more impacted than others. For instance, how will Commercial Real Estate cope with a reduced need for office space? How will urban communities react when current residents want to "physically distance" from their neighbors in high rise apartments/condo? How will sports/event auditoriums adapt to welcome attendees while providing a safe, clean experience? At this point there are no answers. There is no proven path forward for everyone to follow. But just as the introduction of the mobile phone opened up the prospect for revolutionary innovations in every industry over the past 15 years - hardly "normal" - our responses to COVID-19 are likely to be just as revolutionary which will impact virtually every business.
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For the longest time "Business Continuity" and "Disaster Recovery" were concepts that most business owners were aware of, but rarely addressed. Business Continuity solutions were typically expensive, separate environments or platforms that would perform basic company functions for a limited time period for a subset of the company's employees. For many business owners the risk of an outage simply did not warrant the extra effort and expense. Needless to say, the COVID-19 outbreak and the subsequent state enforced lockdowns have caused business leaders to re-evaluate the importance of implemented and tested Business Continuity Plans. Fortunately, the evolution of cloud technologies and maturity of SaaS solutions provide the resiliency and performance in critical day-to-day operating platforms that companies require, with the added benefit of satisfying Business Continuity concerns. Integrated SaaS business solutions, such as Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, Workday among others, combined with cloud-hosted Office Productivity and data storage solutions such as Microsoft O365, Teams and OneDrive, provide processing platforms that meet the day to day needs of the company which seamlessly provide true Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery solutions at no additional cost. Although the response to COVID-19 has been catastrophic to many businesses, it is probably NOT a once in a lifetime event. Unfortunately, we have probably set the standard response to global or localized pandemics or other regional catastrophes. Capabilities for supporting and managing a remote workforce will probably be called on again and again. Call Epsilon Partners to discuss how you may leverage SaaS and Cloud solutions to upgrade your current processing systems while addressing risks associated with events such as the COVID-19 outbreak. |
AuthorLarry Fitzgerald is an experienced Technology and Management Consultant with a proven track record of helping organizations implement new technologies to realize strategic business objectives. ArchivesCategories |