The coronavirus pandemic has affected the operation of companies, but this does not mean that all of them have seen declines. According to a survey conducted by Polcom and Intel, the industrial and manufacturing sector, which in many cases was not negatively affected by Covid-19.
Pandemic has accelerated the digitization process
According to the industry report “Industry 4.0 – a step towards industrial security “, only 9 percent of companies in the surveyed sector had to freeze investments and put new digitization projects on hold. In contrast, and importantly, as many as 17 percent of the companies surveyed admitted that the pandemic had a significant impact on accelerating digitization. Covid also increased the importance of IT departments, and 22 percent of those surveyed said so.
These results should not come as a surprise to anyone, as the manufacturing and construction sectors emerged from the pandemic unscathed, with many entities even recording higher revenues and profits than in the previous year. As a result, agile managers were able to treat the Covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity to implement digital transformation projects – detaching employees from the workplace (digital workplace), digitizing and automating processes or improving customer service, including the ability to handle many matters online, without the need for personal contact – says Mariusz Juranek, commercial director at Polcom.
Security and ensuring business continuity are top priorities
The pandemic has revaluated the business areas of many companies and shown what is crucial in the proper functioning of companies. According to a report by Polcom and Intel, security and ensuring business continuity for the company are key in building an IT strategy. This was indicated by as many as 86 percent of all companies surveyed.
A common response of companies to the pandemic was to move systems to the cloud, which enabled smooth communication and business continuity despite the emergency. Companies that were not previously advanced in the digitization process faced the most challenges, as they had to find solutions to a number of significant issues in a relatively short period of time, such as changing the purchasing process from onsite to offline or moving employees to a work-from-home model. It is also not insignificant that Covid-19 has contributed to a significant increase in the incidence of cyber-attacks, and this despite a significant increase in spending. This is confirmed, among other things, by KPMG’s “Cyber Security Barometer” report, which shows that as many as 64 percent of organizations reported at least one cyber security incident last year. Companies that chose the cloud could significantly reduce these risks – Mariusz Juranek points out.