Digital readiness helped businesses adapt to COVID-19

Digital readiness helped businesses adapt to COVID-19

A majority of business leaders cited digital preparedness as key to their organizations to adapt to Covid-19 in a study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) of the relationship between technology, business and people during the pandemic. The EIU heard from business leaders across eight distinct industries about the challenges and opportunities the disruption created for organizations and how digital initiatives shifted to confront a new reality. “Every company is a digital company in the post pandemic era and the past year has fundamentally changed the way businesses must evolve in the new normal,” said Ihsan Anabtawi, Chief Operating and Marketing Officer, Microsoft UAE. “The research with EIU unveils an in-depth analysis on how the relationships between technology, businesses and individuals have evolved. This means we will have to invest in people and their capacity in creating new solutions that meet the challenges of a rapidly changing economy.” The mass move to remote work also led to a heightened focus on employee engagement — so much so that empowerment topics like skill-building, well-being and creating lasting benefits for society at large now lead the transformation agenda for many organizations. “We’ve long seen the advantages that digital transformation brings customers