A study by Infosys and hfs research said that organisations have accelerated the adoption of automation, digital business models and hyper-scale cloud as the Covid-19 pandemic impacted businesses across industries creating upheaval and economic uncertainty.
A total of 400 global 2000 executives were surveyed to understand how businesses can survive and thrive in the economy that has been affected due to the pandemic.
Pravin Rao, Chief Operating Officer (COO), Infosys, said: “Post-Covid, we have witnessed accelerated scaling of digital across most enterprises. The strategic investment in cloud, cybersecurity and modernisation is not only helping businesses sharpen their focus on end-to-end customer journeys, but also enabling them to do a lot more with much higher agility.”
According to the report, almost 70% of respondents believe that Covid-19 will have a bigger impact than the 2008 downturn with budgets, supply chains, employee availability, with customer intimacy impacted the most, and at least 65% of respondents said they are insulating their business from volatility by building diverse customer pools and investing in an agile business model.
“A new dawn will emerge as the fog clears. We must embrace this brave new business world where a perfect alignment of business outcomes and their enabling technologies demand all our focus and creativity,” said Phil Fersht, CEO and Chief Analyst, HFS Research.
The survey found that the public sector, banking, insurance, healthcare, life sciences, and the high-tech industry respondents are relatively confident as they see emerging opportunities for making appropriate investments amid the crisis. More than 60% of enterprises plan to accelerate their digital transformation initiatives and over 70% plan to change their product and service portfolio to drive greater customer value, the report stated.
For those surveyed, investments in the cloud, cybersecurity and modernising core IT apps, and infrastructure are at the top of the priority heap, the report said. it added that enterprises expect to increase their spending the most on business and digital consulting, followed by IT infrastructure services, including the cloud. They expect the demand for IT and business process services to pick up to serve the dual purpose of driving digital while saving cash.
The findings also stated that post-Covid, working arrangements will change dramatically as only 37% prefer a return to an office-based environment. The work culture will evolve from siloes working to interdisciplinary collaboration, it added.
“In a distributed work environment such as today, employees are an important centrepiece within the companies' strategy framework and therefore, it is imperative for organisations to see how the hybrid work model can be made more effective, productive, resilient, and secure,” Rao said.
