How COVID-19 Accelerated Firms’ Adoption of New Technologies

Implement a targeted pilot of remote collaboration platforms to cut downtime and boost workers’ output in the next quarter. There is growing evidence that workers shifted to telecommuting in response to the health crisis, with international surveys showing increased use of remote work arrangements within the first year. Before this shift, many organizations faced limited tech readiness; the short-term costs of inaction exceeded the upfront investment, and the trajectory of uptake became clear as teams collaborated more asynchronously.

Notera the förklaring behind this shift: there was a rapid move from isolated tasks to cross-functional workflows, enabling faster decision-making and creative redesign of operations, including ansikte-to-ansikte collaboration where possible. These shifts, being deliberate, pushed cash toward training and platform upgrades, especially in the areas where the existing stack could be extended without major overhauls.

Den trajectory of uptake across sectors shows a mixed pattern: areas with high customer interaction experienced faster changes, while back-office lines benefited from remote-capable workflows. The health crisis spurred a creative use of existing assets and emerging partnerships, enabling teams to keep delivery timelines intact while reducing on-site dependencies. Across the board, kostnader of inaction rose, while timing mattered for short-term gains and risk management.

Begin with inventorying existing tools, assess kostnader, and build a short-term plan that preserves cash while scaling capabilities. A note for executives: prioritize interfaces workers already know, reduce disruptions for those facing the most friction, and measure outcomes against clear metrics for engagement and reliability. This introduction outlines practical steps for international teams seeking resilient operation.

Practical Takeaways: Actions and Metrics for Post-Pandemic Tech Adoption

Launch a 90-day uptake sprint across three sectors, starting with anna from IT, to quantify throughput gains from remote-enabled workflows and telecommuting options. The objective is to reduce manual hand-offs and accelerate decision cycles by 25–40 percent in core processes.

1. Identify three high-impact processes and set numeric targets. Map invoicing, scheduling, and service requests for automation. Establish baseline cycle times, then aim for 20–35 percent faster completion within 8–12 weeks. Use interactivity-enabled dashboards to track weekly gains and surface where bottlenecks face bottlenecks; notes should capture where changes yield the biggest advantage.

2. Deploy a modular platform that supports telecommuting and cross-team collaboration. Prioritize plug‑and‑play data sources and simple interfaces to reduce friction for workers. Current pilots should demonstrate a clear path from traditional workflows toward seamless remote collaboration, with percent reductions in manual steps and faster response times as benchmarks.

3. Invest in people and formal training to accelerate uptake. Create a formal change plan focused on workers’ skill expansion and incentives tied to measured improvements in speed and quality. Include third-party vendors where needed and track progress by department; anna’s team can serve as a kickoff anchor for broader rollout.

4. Strengthen security and risk controls while expanding access. Enforce MFA, data loss prevention, and role-based access to minimize risks. Target a 30–40 percent reduction in security incidents within the first six months, and document changes in risk posture as uptake widens.

5. Frame governance around measurable metrics and ongoing learning. Define KPIs for efficiency, quality, and customer-facing interactivity. Use a quarterly cadence to review what changed, where improvements occurred, and what still needs attention; keep notes visible to stakeholders across sectors.

Notes and case notes: indeed, a few early pilots began with small teams and then expanded to broader sectors. In saint-paul–area programs, digital forms and real-time status updates increased resident engagement, while in the energy sector, valero‑adjacent operations reported smoother logistics and better crew utilization. Currently, managers report the biggest gains when changes focus on people and processes together, not solely on tools.

What to track for ongoing success: percent improvements in cycle time, reductions in manual processing, utilization of remote work days, and the frequency of automated vs. manual hand-offs. Where automation yields the strongest advantage, prioritize scaling there; the usual path is to start with clear, formal targets and then broaden to other sectors as confidence grows. As changes accumulate, teams see better service levels, reduced costs, and stronger economic resilience for workers facing new ways of working.

Core tech priorities that accelerated: cloud, AI, and automation

Adopt a cloud-first platform with modular services, pair with AI-enabled analytics, and push automation across high-volume processes to realize faster cycles and stronger margins. In addition, establish clear governance and a long-term skills plan to sustain momentum. This addition supports resilience.

Trajectory across industries shows reported gains from tighter data-to-operations integration, with smarter orchestration yielding better throughput and reduced rework. This trajectory has ever-improving return as platforms mature.

Energy efficiency and carbon management become a competitive edge when automation reduces waste and AI optimizes resource use; the economic case strengthens as energy costs trend upward. An addition to resilience helps teams weather shocks and supply swings.

Inclusive redesign of workflows supports a wider workforce and improves managerial alignment; training and role clarity lift margin and reduce turnover, enabling smoother long-term execution.

Following a three-wave migration plan focuses on core data assets, AI copilots for finance and operations, and automation on factory-floor use cases in subsequent steps. For example, a regional retailer cut excess inventory and improved service levels through automated replenishment and smarter demand signaling.

Return on investment is driven by cost avoidance plus productivity gains; compare pre- and post-implementation economics, and monitor EBITDA margin, payback period, and risk-adjusted impact. Costs caused by legacy systems can be reduced by standardized interfaces, amplifying overall gain.

International teams share best practices; the unsworth benchmark highlights that cross-border collaboration pushed faster benefits than isolated pilots, expanding comparative learning and faster value realization.

Additionally, the combination of cloud, AI, and automation pushes smarter processes and longer-term competitive advantage by enabling more inclusive work, better margin, and lower carbon intensity. It also improves industrial efficiency and supports international competitiveness.

Remote-work enablement: IT infrastructure, security, and access controls

Adopt a zero-trust access model with MFA for all remote sessions within 30 days to gain an advantage in threat reduction and policy consistency across operations.

Implement cloud-first networking, replacing the majority of VPNs with secure access service edge (SASE) and zero-trust network access (ZTNA). Use a cloud IAM platform to enforce least privilege, time-based access, and device posture checks. Enabling these standards requires dedicated, scalable products for a growing telecommuting population, including personal devices that meet defined security baselines.

Data protection plans should encrypt data in transit and at rest; deploy data loss prevention (DLP) to shield payments data and sensitive information; tokenize payment fields used in systems; separate duties to reduce risk between teams. Maintain immutable logs and centralized key management to support audits and investigations.

Device and endpoint management mandates enrollment in a corporate MDM/EMM; enforce regular patching cadences and automatic remote wipe for lost devices; disable local admin on personal devices used for work; require screen-lock and full-disk encryption as a baseline for telecommuting access.

Policy and governance frameworks should define cross-functional rules spanning IT, security, HR, and finance; implement a weekly review of access requests and approvals; ensure time-bound access for high-risk resources and audit trails for each change, while keeping support for those with elevated roles clear and trackable.

Security operations require a dedicated function, whether in-house or via trusted partner, with immediate incident response playbooks; conduct quarterly simulations and align alerts with product and payments teams to accelerate containment and recovery times.

Evaluation metrics should focus on time to remediate vulnerabilities, frequency of access reviews, and telecommuting performance indicators; use between 1 and 2 core indicators per domain to maintain clarity and drive continuous policy refinement across teams.

Vendor and product selection should emphasize interoperable APIs, transparent upgrade cycles, and auditable security attestations; prioritize early engagement with suppliers to accelerate growing capabilities for remote work while preserving standards and accountability.

Digital customer channels: online engagement, self-service, and analytics

Launch a unified self-service portal and proactive chat to cut costs and shorten issue resolution within three months.

Online engagement across chat, video (zoom), email, and social touchpoints connects customers with both self-service paths and live help, freeing them from repetitive queries and helping your teams connect more efficiently.

Self-service design emphasizes dynamic FAQs, guided flows, and AI-driven bots that pull data from back-end systems, shed the need for manual routing, and enable managerial teams to reallocate financing toward growth initiatives.

Analytics and governance: dashboards reveal where the customer journey stalls; use these insights to optimize touchpoints, plan capacity, and align investments with date junejuly milestones, including a 31st review, in light of prevailing economic conditions.

ragoussis blog highlights how digital channels provide significant value for companies, especially in the pharmaceutical sector; unsworth notes that time savings and resource reallocation follow this change. There, finally, the team intend to provide ongoing data on performance, with date junejuly benchmarks and 31st metrics reinforcing gains.

Data governance and analytics: speed, quality, and privacy considerations

Implement centralized data governance with privacy-by-design and real-time data quality checks, enabling trusted analytics from the start and an auditable trail across the data estate.

We currently track four pillars driving action: speed of insight, data quality, privacy safeguards, and governance processes. A scoreboard monitors data lineage, accuracy, freshness, and access controls; standards for metadata and role-based permissions keep data usable while privacy remains protected. In months-long rollout cycles, teams can build reusable analytics components that speed up evaluating payments and restaurants data streams, and software integrations with common platforms. The third milestone focuses on scaling across segments while maintaining governance integrity.

Evaluating risk and value requires explicit data contracts and clear accountability. Their teams should align on early indicators and longer-run metrics. roper stated that transparency around data quality yields higher stakeholder confidence. vorley and unsworth stated that cross-functional collaboration accelerates value realization when data lineage and access policies are shared, building trust across the organization.

Privacy controls must be built into every dataset, with masked or synthetic data for exploration and role-based access governed by policy. People across analytics, legal, and product contribute to data stewardship, ensuring processes remain auditable as sources evolve. Demand signals drive prioritization, and resources are reallocated to critical lines, with longer-run plans updated periodically. Uncertainty remains about some data sources and regulatory constraints, but the framework supports ongoing alignment with the business demands over months and years.

Therefore, document explanation of data lineage for stakeholders and maintain a four-quarter scoreboard to measure progress. This approach reduces uncertainty and allows speeding up responsible experimentation across payments and restaurants ecosystems, aligning software investments with demand and enabling faster insights. In the longer-run, people and platforms benefit from clearer accountability across roles and jurisdictions.

Upskilling and talent strategy: new roles, training programs, and partnerships

Implement a formal, 12-month upskilling program with three tiers–core capabilities, domain specialization, and leadership–mapped to explicit business outcomes and with clear entry points for roles in e-commerce operations, analytics, and product support. What initiatives should you start today: funded video modules, hands-on projects, cross-functional rotations, and micro-credentials; allocate capital for external training and partnerships; set a post-training review to gauge impact. Currently, this approach yields a great return during the recovery phase and helps organizations face disruption with stronger capabilities. mckinsey notes that the creation of such skill pipelines outweighs costs over time, suggesting them as a major capability lever there.

To operationalize, assign a formal owner and set quarterly milestones, with a dedicated budget line for certifications and vendor-provided content. Entry paths should be explicit for frontline roles, analysts, and supervisors, so there is a clear route from initial exposure to mastery; above all, link each module to business metrics such as conversion rates, cycle times, and post‑purchase payments accuracy. The emphasis should be on adopting practical projects that mirror real-life tasks and on ensuring all learning feeds into immediate business outcomes.

Partnerships with universities, fintechs, and training vendors enable adopting scalable curricula and real‑world projects. There, paid internships, co‑created certificates, and joint labs support addressing needs across operations, sales, and payments. Such alliances help providing structured pathways for entry-level talent and experienced staff alike, while limiting cost of scale. The aim is to keep completion rates high and time-to-value short, with joint governance and clearly defined success criteria.

Notes from industry observers show that formal collaboration ecosystems outperform isolated training efforts in both reach and retention. There is evidence that collaboration-driven curricula accelerate talent creation in high‑velocity environments, where the shock of rapid change requires rapid capability uplift. Above all, leadership should model continual learning, reinforcing that upskilling is not a one-off event but a strategic, ongoing addition to the talent stack.