Welcome to the “New Normal”. Are YOU Ready?

You have been hearing it for the last six months. In the media, in conversations with Family, Friends and Professional Colleagues.

Business leaders in both SMB and Enterprise have been coming to grips with how they are going to lead their organisations through this “New Normal”, a once in a generation business operation paradigm shift.

According to research conducted by communications firm Twilio, of 2,500 Australian business leaders that were surveyed, 97% responded that COVID-19 has accelerated their digital transformation. Furthermore, 92% said that digital communication is “extremely” or “critical” to their digital transformation and 79% of respondents has increased their budgets to facilitate this transition.

All in all, COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation by an average of 6 years. That is, organisations are actively implementing plans they were going to make in 2026, NOW. These organisations may be your competitors, giving their business a competitive advantage over yours.

But what are some of the areas that businesses are accelerating? Business leaders are currently looking at the following:

• Omni-channel communications for customers and greater reliance on the digital customer experience.
• Remote working capabilities for employees including cloud-based communication and conferencing platforms.
• Mobility and greater reliance on smart mobile devices.

Remote Working Capabilities

Businesses around the globe are in slightly different states of remote working. Some were already using some form of remote working technology prior to COVID-19. However, many more Australian businesses are still relying on traditional telecommunication platforms like physical fixed lines with on-premises PABX hardware as their primary method of communication.

With this “New Normal”, businesses will need to look beyond this towards Cloud-based communication platforms, otherwise known as Unified Communication as a Service platforms (UCaaS). These technologies allow businesses to maintain their “fixed line presence” to their customers, even if your office is closed and your staff are working from home. Staff will also be able contact each other through internal calls, messaging, and video conferencing technologies, all within the same platform from their desktop or mobile.

Mobility and Mobile devices

Mobile Services and Data usage was already increasing naturally pre-COVID. But now it has grown significantly as we enter a post-COVID world. Mobile Services and devices face increased reliance as working remotely continues to grow. Businesses need to ensure that they have the right mobile plans and devices to support the additional communication platforms and applications as they go through their own digital transformation.

Omni-Channel Communications

It is not only businesses that are accelerating their digital transformation plans because of COVID. Customers are also transforming how they purchase and interact with businesses. Customers are no longer walking into stores and businesses in the numbers as they used to, they are increasingly relying on digital platforms to communicate and make purchases.

Platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and enhanced websites with digital stores have become the new “storefronts” and so require a greater focus to ensure that their spending dollar is being spent with you and not being spent elsewhere.