The Covid-19 pandemic is affecting every aspect of life — from how organisations work to how its employees conduct their daily lives at home. While the top priority for all enterprises — be it large, medium, small and micro — is safety of employees, customers, partners and others impacted by the virus, it is also becoming imperative (for organisations) to ensure continuity of business.

And this is a huge challenge as the situation is alien to most across the spectrum. Given the current status quo, organisations are being predictive and proactive to preserve business continuity and build enterprise resistance.

Whether it is secure access to the data and systems required for the job or remote access to business-critical host and mainframe systems — organisations are working to ensure employees and customers maintain business functionality.

Digital transformation, once a marathon, has now turned into a sprint with organisations scrambling to adjust to an extraordinary level of disruption brought by this pandemic. And IT companies are working together to provide solutions free-of-cost and ensure that customer demands are fulfilled seamlessly and their digital transformation journey not compromised in the process.

Digital solutions

Micro Focus, for instance, has rolled out offers that include customer-friendly elements such as pre-packed solutions to streamline response, free trials or deeply discounted professional services to ensure security, access and high productivity during remote work. Brillio on the other hand has put forth a business continuity plan to include not just pandemic-induced remote working, but also the impact of climate change and related risk. Both Micro Focus and Brillio power digital transformation.

Hybrid cloud data services company NetApp has introduced custom tools such as NetApp NAC (Network Access Control) to enhance network security at every end point. The company says that Multi Factor Authentication has become the rule of the day towards ensuring secure connectivity to corporate infrastructure

CRM software services company, PegaSystems has rolled out the Covid employee tracking app to enable the employees conduct self-assessment besides giving protection guidance. The app is available to its clients as well.

Aftab Ullah, Chief Operating and Delivery Officer, Brillio, said that the company has created the Office of Virtual Proximity, which is a function that would focus on how project teams collaborate, stay productive and keep themselves engaged with each other and clients. It would also focus on ensuring the firm’s continuity plans are surpassed/ met.

IT transformation

Saurabh Saxena, Country Director, India, Micro Focus, said: “While employees tend to face the possibility of functioning with little or no IT support, we at Micro Focus provide virtual IT assistance and training to our employees such that they are empowered with digital tools to do their jobs, collaborate, support and engage with customers to drive best result.”

Ravi Chhabria, Managing Director, NetApp highlighted the crucial role of storage in application performance. “Enterprises that are already on their cloud journey have managed to transition rapidly than others, making them more agile than their peers.”

Suman Reddy, Eadunuri, Managing Director, Pegasystems India, conceded that the WFH arrangement was here to stay across verticals regardless of the size of the organisation. “Organisations that have not undergone complete digital transformation might find it challenging. The onus will be on the management to ensure that the employees are provided with the necessary infrastructure and necessary support.

On challenges and opportunities in the aftermath of Covid 19, all these players conceded that the digital transformation journey would change the way in which organisations look at the IT budget, on investment in IT infrastructure, data protection, business resilience plan and so on, throwing up huge opportunity for such tech-service providers in the process.

The period is a challenging one as the onus would be on the business leaders to adopt a holistic approach and align organisational goals with the innovations to arrive at sustainable solutions for tomorrow.

Gerd Hoefner, Managing Director and president, Siemens Healthcare Private Ltd, (a med-tech company) said “The major challenge when we return to the office would be in managing the capacity of the building and transportation with the current social distancing norms.”

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