INNOVATION
Technology Is No Longer
A Luxury For Business:
It’s A Necessity
By Eugene Wanekeya
So, China caught a cold and now the
rest of the world is sneezing quite
literally. It’s now going to be a lot
easier to explain to future generations,
when the world officially became a global
village. This is of course with a light
touch. It’s still too early to start making
Covid-19 jokes.
So, back to serious matters on hand.
Covid-19 is and will remain in the lips
and keyboards of many for months if
not years to come, as the world attempts
to look back trying to figure out where
everyone dropped their respective balls.
As usual, hind sight is always 20/20, and
therefore, in this piece, I would like to
share my two cents on where I believe
corporates in Africa and the world as a
whole dropped the ball. And it’s simple,
pre-Covid-19, many leaders within the
corporate hierarchy viewed technology as
a luxury and not a necessity. Here’s why.
For starters, barely a month or two into
the pandemic, companies rushed to lay off
or slash salaries of their workers, blaming
it on losses in revenue. Second, many
companies appeared to have been caught
flat-footed despite the fact that Covid-19
did not happen overnight. It started
as an epidemic in the City of Wuhan
in China, gradually spreading to other
cities within China and at the same time
to other continents in the world, hence
earning itself pandemic status. In short,
many corporates outside of China had
a head start of about 3 months in terms
of information on the negative impact
of this virus on businesses, on account of
lockdowns, social distancing, and all. So,
why were companies slow to recalibrate
and adapt to the situation? It had to have
been a lapse in leadership.
Let’s break it down. I find it incredible that
within a month or two of governments
around the world imposing strict
guidelines on cessation of movement
and social distancing, companies would
rush to lay off their staff and slash
salaries of others, claiming that they were
hemorrhaging revenue as a result of their
staff not working. How is it possible,
that in the 21st century, employers have
to physically have their employees in
the office for work to take place? Is it
that decision makers haven’t heard about
remote working, or are they just caught
up in old traditions of hawk-eyed physical
supervision of their employees?
There have been technologies in existence
for quite some time that enable team
collaboration and document sharing
through secure networks, video and audio
conferencing, time tracking, and much
more that can be integrated into enterprise
resource planning (ERP) systems thereby
enabling staff to comfortably work
remotely from any location outside
the office. Whereas some companies
had embraced these technologies for
their obvious benefits such as improved
efficiency and productivity of their staff
and reduced operational costs, most
companies hadn’t embraced them. Such
technologies didn’t seem like necessities
but rather luxuries therefore decision
makers would rather allocate budgets
for other more traditional OPEX and
CAPEX. Covid-19 has however exposed
how flawed this kind of thinking is and it’s
evident in the paralysis of many business
operations globally.
The other issue is how companies were
seemingly caught flat-footed in spite
of Covid-19 being a trending topic
for months in various national and
international media platforms. Do we
blame business analysts for inaccurate
forecasts or company leadership for
not prioritizing investment in business
intelligence (BI)? Using predictive
analytics, it would have been possible for
companies to foresee and even plan for
a potential lockdown, reduce or rampup
production of certain commodities
depending on their potential demand, and
anticipate logistical challenges emanating
from rules on cessation of movement,
among others. The possibilities and
benefits associated with a good BI system
are limitless.
Just to reiterate, hind sight is always 20/20
therefore if we knew then what we know
now, I believe that many companies would
have done things very differently. I still
believe that it’s not too late to adjust to
our new normal. Post Covid-19 will not
be business as usual therefore we must
embrace our new reality that technology
today is a necessity and no longer a luxury.
Therefore, decision makers in companies
need to re-evaluate their priorities and
ensure technology solutions that enable
work to go on during this unusual time go
to the top of their priority list.
Eugene Wanekeya is a
Communications and Marketing
consultant currently serving as the
Head of Communications, Projects
and Partnerships at Cerosoft
Technologies Limited. To interact
with this trend spotter, you can reach
him via mail at: GWanex@gmail.
com.
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