Digital Transformation & Covid-19

Covid-19 is currently giving hundreds of digitalisation initiatives a reality check on their progress.

Most companies were forced to enable their workforce to work from home in a matter of weeks and for plenty of them, there was already a level of remote infrastructure in place that served people working from home or even part-time.

With this, many were struggling to answer these key questions:

How do we scale our network so that our employees can work from home, enabling them with the tools and services to work efficiently and all of this without compromising security?

Cloud computing becomes the backbone of this transformation

Without the capacity of cloud providers, the transition to a remote way of life would not have been possible in this short space of time. Public clouds like AWS have been enabling companies for years with the concept of scalable infrastructure and pay-as-you-go options.

But now this concept really comes to fore in the face of this crisis, when there are sudden surges of demand for compute and network infrastructure which traditional datacenters cannot keep pace with.

If you think of the services that you use during a workday, chances are that most of them are running in the cloud on the infrastructure of one of the big three cloud providers.

Take these services for example:

• Zoom runs on AWS (and soon on Oracle Cloud)
• G-suite on Google Cloud Platform
• Teams & Office356 on Azure

These companies providing remote communciation tools rely heavily on cloud providers to be able to provide capacity on demand as user demand spikes across timezones and regions. And with that you have to admire these incredible statistics on just how much remote working is putting a strain on resources:

• Microsoft saw a 775% increase in Teams’ calling and meeting monthly users in a one month period in Italy
• Windows Virtual Desktop usage has grown more than 3x.

It’s incredible that this sudden shift was even possible at all.

This crisis has acted as a catalyst for freeing budgets and resources driving digital transformation.

Seizing the opportunity, but with care

Companies that invested in their Digital Transformation prior to the crisis reaped the benefits of being resilient from the very start and will continue to invest in their progression.

On the other hand, companies that were reluctant or slow with their digital transformation, this crisis has acted as a catalyst for freeing budgets and resources driving digital transformation.

It’s key to stay on this path and not fall back into old habits that caught them offguard during this pandemic.

As we look forward, we can expect more such business debilitating scenarios in the coming decades especially as we consider the impact that climate change will have on the economic landscape. As we rebuild for the future and embrace digital transformation, we have the opportunity to sow the right seeds of growth. One that is sustainable, fair and inclusive to society and business at large.