IDC x Adobe: Driving business resilience through automated workflows

As organisations in Asia Pacific continue their recovery in 2021, building digital resiliency must become a key business priority.

As organisations in Asia Pacific continue their recovery in 2021, digital resiliency has become a business priority. Defined as the ability of an organisation to not only mitigate or eliminate risks, but rapidly adapt to business disruptions by leveraging digital capabilities, resiliency will become a necessity for survival in a post-pandemic world. Will your business be ready the next time normalcy is upended?

Driving Business Resilience Through Automated Workflows and Responsive Experiences, a webinar hosted by IDC and Adobe, explored how resilient APAC businesses are, as well as how to leverage technology to support business continuity. Here are some key takeaways.

Digital resiliency will only continue to increase in importance

An overnight shift to online channels in 2020 forced organisations to rapidly accelerate their digital adoption. Some were unable to keep up, with 2% of APAC businesses shutting down entirely.

Over a year on, these disruptions are showing no signs of slowing or stopping. Rapid business transformation continues to be crucial, with countries that initially showed strong signs of recovery now going back into lockdown. However, 12% of large organisations and 28% of SMEs in APAC have no plans in place to future-proof themselves against disruption.

Going forward, APAC leadership must prioritise digital resiliency and double down on digitising paper-based processes and workflows. Equally important is the need to be hyper-aware of and respond to the ever-changing environment with agility, through digital analytics and insights.

Digitalisation roadmaps should consider evolved ways of working

Creating the optimal environment for employees is key to adapting to disruption. But perhaps the biggest change brought on by the pandemic to date has been the shift towards a semi or fully remote working environment.

38% of employees in the region are wary of how new ways of working will affect collaboration with internal and external teams, while 32% are concerned it will impact their access to resources and tools integral to their workflows.

As people grapple with the reality of long working hours, job insecurity and rising unemployment, it is essential that organisations nurture an engaged, empowered and productive workforce to support its transformation and innovation plans. A focus on a ‘fail fast, learn faster’ approach will also help businesses cultivate a competitive difference as they focus on scaling up their innovation.

Build business resilience by delivering empathy at scale

By the end of 2021, 65% of APAC organisations will be digital first as physical interactions decrease, and automated operations and contactless experiences become commonplace. As a result, consumers are facing digital fatigue. The most resilient organisations effectively address this by building great, contextual experiences for their customers.

Deploying empathy at scale is challenging but possible, with the use of data, as well as technology that augments human skills and allow for automation of mundane tasks. By developing a deep understanding of customer needs and wants, businesses can create mutual trust and lifetime value that will drive long-term success.

Maintaining customer confidence is also key to enhancing resiliency, given increasing scrutiny on data privacy. Organisations should offer transparency in how customer data is handled as well as actively monitor, identify and address points of weakness within data management frameworks.

Mapping out the road to recovery with the six dimensions of digital resiliency

The path ahead is full of unknowns as the pandemic and environment at large continue to evolve. In this multi-speed economy, with many parts of the region recovering at different rates, organisations must bear in mind that there is no one size fits all solution for the APAC region.

The IDC’s digital resiliency framework provides a useful guide for organisations as they look to evolve existing workflows. Consisting of six interdependent organisational dimensions, it shows how technology can support the entire business through different stages of any crisis. The framework will bring digital acceleration and resiliency to the forefront of business strategy, to build a stronger, more sustainable and resilient organisation.

Click here to watch the full webinar.