A dramatic increase in digital activity is putting huge pressure on IT systems and exposing weaknesses in systems that aren’t robust enough to handle the massive increases in digital traffic that are taking place.

The pandemic is also accelerating digital transformation at a time when companies may not be able to make big changes. A few years ago, there was pressure on large businesses to have digital channels such as apps, social media and chat functions up and running so they could interact with customers more easily. The shop front was modernized to compete with the new cloud-native start-ups that appeared across a wide range of sectors.

Customer experience is key

Now digital transformation, made more urgent by the pandemic, demands companies automate their internal processes so customers have the optimum experience possible. Organizations must be able to communicate with their customers in a more personalized way – from the first to the last interaction and all the touch points in between.

This is not so straightforward for large organizations that often have complicated legacy systems which were developed over long periods of time. They are expected to consolidate and rebuild their systems into a modern platform that’s as agile and up-to-date as a system built from scratch for a cloud start-up who can respond with ease to their digital audience. However they may also need to keep old systems running in order to view, for example, historic customer data, which costs money and adds to staff and operational costs.

Supporting remote collaboration

As well as being able to provide excellent customer service, organizations must also develop ways to make it easier for their workforce to do their jobs remotely and still be able to collaborate. The sudden shift to working from home a year ago has become the norm. The digital office of the future, where employees will expect to work from anywhere, brings its own complexity. Staff will need to access all manner of confidential information on their laptops, phones and home systems raising data protection issues and highlighting the importance of strengthening user authentication.

The financial pressure may be too great or the time might not be right to take on more risk. Organizations, however, need to become more agile, nimble and able to scale to meet market demand, while existing digital channels are under greater pressure as increasing numbers of people use them. The pandemic is putting bigger organizations who may not be doing this well under the microscope. Problems are being magnified and more pressure on digital channels means cracks will show. You might be noticing this in your own organization.

Increasing flexibility and agility

Macro 4 has a range of solutions to help organizations increase agility, unlock greater value from their enterprise information to support digital business and drive transformation. We can help you create, capture, secure, store and deliver documents and data, connect people and processes with the information they need and provide business intelligence for more informed decision making. Helping you to work more flexibly, delivering value to customers and simplifying your internal processes.

Read more about accelerating digital transformation.