COVID-19: Hammer & Dance for the Businesses and Dawn of the new Digital
There are currently around a zillion articles offering opinions on what could be the new norm. One of the best articles that explain the spread of COVID-19 in detail and the mitigation strategy is Tomas Pueyo’s Hammer & Dance. You can read this here
The crux of Hammer and Dance is this picture
In the hammer phase, you apply stringent measures to contain the virus and in the dance phase, you take several steps to contain the virus until the vaccine is out.
Going by the quick succession of virus outbreaks we are facing in the last 20 years, starting with SARS, Swine Flu, MERS, Ebola and now with COVID-19; it is prudent that the business world evolves a Hammer and Dance as well. Please check here for a more detailed visual of the pandemics. It is quite scary indeed.
Hammer phase of the business world is about ensuring Resiliency. Resiliency is all about trying to continue the current norm with a sense of urgency. Resiliency is about Known-Known. Set of things that have fallen apart, such as people not being able to go to offices, and for those who do not have access to remote systems, access needs to be enabled. Customers have queries about their mortgages, loans, insurance policy coverages, and many others. and these need to be provided on a war footing.
The dance phase of the business world is about Recalibration and Reimagination. Recalibration is about adjusting to the new norm. Reimagination is about thriving in the new norm. This Dance phase means the dawn of a new Digital.
Recalibration is about Known-Unknown, and Reimagination is about unknown-unknown. We don’t have answers yet for many things. The Unknown here is the new-norm. This is the Dawn of New Digital.
Before we delve into the details of the new Digital, it very critical to understand the new frictions that COVID-19 has been introducing in our lives.
Friction 1: Remoting as a norm for the workforce. This works for most of us but imagines the case of a Builder/Carpenter etc.
Friction 2: Lack of access to physical outlets such as Bank Branches, Fashion Outlets to add an extreme example of Oil Rigs, etc.
Friction 3: Social Distancing especially with the retailers, door delivery man, etc
Friction 4: Security. It’s is pitiful even to think that someone will pry on the innocent victims during a pandemic situation, but such is the reality
Overarching friction upon all of the above friction is identity.
Let’s explore how we can use technology to solve the above frictions.
Remoting has been a norm in several start-up & Hi-Tech Organisations and even has proven to be more productive than working in a collocated setup. There are quite a lot of productivity comparisons between in-office workers and those working from remote working locations. The common consensus is with reduced/no commute, lesser distractions from co-workers (remember your boss wanting to have ad-hoc meetings as he had some to kill) and no watercooler conversations; it will very likely that remote workers could be more productive on tasks that are defined and clear to execute. The problem comes with the tasks that are ambiguous and requires building consensus/alignment. This is where the collaboration is very important so that you can take the non-verbal cues into account when responding to the audience.
Video conferencing does a decent job at this but yet everyone is keen to exhibit the best of their behaviors as video conferencing is still considered to be a formal mode of communication. Teams that have built relationships over the period may excel at this as they are more inclined to be open in expressing their opinions.
Please check this report to explore further.
With 5G spreading its wings, Virtual Reality Meetings / Holograms might become a reality in the coming days, but we are not there yet.
The crowdsourcing, gig economy, low code platforms (Outsystems, Mendix, UnQork, etc) and open innovation platforms (for e.g. www.apixplatform.com ) which are ahead of their times might find their way into mainstream sooner as the organizations are going through significant cost reduction and want to do more for less.
On to the next friction of “Lack of access to physical outlets”
Places such as retail outlets, schools, universities, bank branches etc are the last bastions of the physical world. While the possibilities of online education, banking with your mobile app, etc exists, we have not been comfortable using these means for complex scenarios such as a mortgage negotiation, alimony settlement, negotiation of a complex legal contract where tempers might flare up from both the ends.
COVID-19 situation has forced schools, universities to close and most of the educational institutions have been caught unaware of how to replicate an in-person ecosystem into a purely digital ecosystem. The good news here is the current generation is much more digital-savvy (they think Facebook is legacy) and will adopt into collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, Slack, etc very soon. This is an opportunity area for innovators.
The same applies to those who unfortunately have to call a contact center for reasons ranging from getting a test for COVID-19 to check the status of working capital loans. Contact centers of today were not designed to handle workloads of populations who are in a locked-down stage. Newer solutions such as Amazon Connect, Google Contact Centre AI, etc might be of help. Time to reimagine the norm here.
Another bigger impact here is those who go to hospitals for routine check-ups who could become collateral damages because of the COVID-19 situation. Given the current situation, Tele-Healthcare with an ability to get diagnosed by accredited doctors not essentially from your country of residence might ease the load of the already-stretched Healthcare Systems.
Social Distancing is a new BlackSwan. We are now worried about getting closer to anything or anyone. The implications of social distancing range from using touchless temperature sensing (high temperature/fever detection), to contactless payments. Mobile/Online payments which have been a norm in Asia could find their way into the countries which are still comfortable with cash.
Also, governments might find it easy to distribute benefits directly on the citizens’ accounts than any other channels. This is definitely likely to expedite the adoption of the Central Bank Issued Digital Currencies (CBDC) than earlier. Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has already published a report on this which not only covers the COVID19 but also Cyber Attack which might potentially lead to a lockdown too. BIS report is accessible here
Security is one of the core frictions that we need to be mindful of. With most of your workforce (including that of your partners) going remote. Your operations are more vulnerable than ever. Zero Trust Security principles are very apt to be adopted at these times.
Innovative work done by several workgroups such as OpenID is of very much relevance here as Identify is overarching friction that needs to be handled very carefully.
In summary, COVID-19 has forced us into a newer Digital Transformation regime where we are not transforming just because the possibilities exist but due to an alternate reality that cannot be ignored. This is the time to recalibrate to remove the frictions and more importantly to reimagine the way you conduct your business.
This is also an opportunity for organizations to really put customers at the center of everything that they do and obsessively transform themselves to become helpful as well as more relevant. There are several enablers such as Cloud Computing, AI, Blockchain, etc that could be considered towards rapidly embracing the Dawn of the new Digital.
Hammer and Begin your Dance!
Acknowledgments
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Trust
3. https://hbr.org/2015/10/global-teams-that-work
4. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-of-pandemics-deadliest/
5. https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-the-dance-be9337092b56
8. https://runningremote.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/shutterstock_1006574452-750x400.jpg
9. https://www.bis.org/publ/bisbull03.pdf
11. https://www.wrike.com/blog/working-remotely-during-coronavirus-outbreak/
12. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/coronavirus-uk-schools-closed
13. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-best-security-have-zero-trust-says-expert/
