Companies across different sectors, whether large or small, are experiencing a radical shift in their business operations due to the rapid adoption of technology. Today, the availability of disruptive technologies has increased exponentially. The disruption would occur over several years or decades during the industrial era, whereas now, technology can disrupt entire industries in a few months. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated this trend even more.

An accurate description of this age can be the “Digital Age.” Exponential new technologies combined with new management principles would unlock massive new value creation. But innovation isn’t just about the technology itself. It is about solving a problem by creating a novel approach. While taking the concept to reality, one can use many technology levers. According to the article 3 Innovation Strategies for the Age of Digital Disruption, disruption happens when any company in any industry acts along the following three dimensions – run (do business), change (do better), and reinvent (do different). Along with incremental innovation, i.e., improving an existing product or service, firms should also focus on radical innovation to reinvent their business.

In the Digital Age, it is difficult to be impervious to the effects of digitalization. In How Incumbents Survive and Thrive, London Business School professor Julian Birkinshaw mentions that fighting against disruption is hard. He proposes three alternatives for firms to survive disruption – Double down (on existing strengths), Retrench to ensure survival (by forming alliance with other firms or lobbying), or move away (seize opportunities in new markets).

Fig 1. 10 Technologies That Can Change Any Business

As digital adoption increases, businesses move closer to the customer by differentiating themselves with personalized offerings. This feat is possible through efficient digital feedback mechanisms and analytics that accurately capture voice of the customer and help in predicting future market trends.

Today’s customer service organizations are responding to customer-driven changes towards digital interactions by reimagining business models that improve productivity and customer experience.

Following are the four major shifts as a result of rapid adoption of Fourth Industrial Technologies.

1. Rapid and extreme digitization – Faster adoption of technologies that leverage greater volumes of data and analytics now makes true digitalization of end-to-end processes possible. One can witness this achievement in the medical sector with increased telehealth visits.
2. Ascent of contactless operations – Companies can achieve hyper-personalization by augmenting human, AI-enabled, and digital customer support with an omnichannel approach and real-time analytics.
3. Virtualization of workplaces – Initially forced to enable remote working due to Covid-19, organizations have continued to adopt the hybrid workplace model after realizing increased employee productivity and cost reduction.
4. Rise of alternate sources for talent – Lately, the labor market has witnessed huge gaps in supply and demand. As companies struggle to fill vacancies at all levels, they have become more innovative in sourcing skilled people. Specialist marketplaces allow companies to balance traditional and as-needed labor.

The word digital still reminds many business executives of sales, marketing, and customer experience initiatives. But some CFOs and CIOs know the importance of effective integrated back-office operations to transform customer-facing systems and processes. Developing new digital capabilities in their core systems and making the key intelligence and data residing there available to customer-centric operations will fundamentally change how work gets done.

Anish Hedaoo
Presales Consultant - Travel, Transportation, Logistics & Hospitality, Digital Operations & Platforms

Anish has experience in BPO pre-sales, crafting client-centric solutions addressing the rapidly evolving business and technological landscape. He is a computer engineer with an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Indore.