You may have to pause less-critical parts of your tech company’s digital-transformation effort amid pandemic uncertainty -- but you’ll need to accelerate others, according to the thoughtful interview subjects here. A surprising 38 percent of CFOs in a Gartner survey plan no budget cuts at all in the face of COVID economic and business impacts -- and even fewer plan to take an axe to IT operations.
That’s as it should be, according to Vaclav Vincalek. The Partner at business-tech consultancy Future Infinitive notes here that unpredictable crises and cash shortages are nothing new in the tech world, and should encourage management teams to refocus on mission-critical elements of their business, such as customer-facing communications services.
Read Vaclav Vincalek on investing in measurable impact.
“The dot-com bubble burst and 9/11 may seem like ancient history to some. These were events that forced businesses to focus on what’s really important: providing value to customers and investing in projects with measurable impact on revenue and cash flow...
“The cash shortage refocused management teams on what was vital for their businesses. The current situation will be no different. Business will have to adapt to a new environment and adapt quickly. Companies with well-planned strategies will adjust some tactics. If they’ve already planned for change and aligned with their vision, they’ll continue to succeed with focused execution.”
Many enterprises, especially SME organizations with head counts south of 5000, have gone into a kind of economic lockdown, freezing budgets across the board to reduce risk.
The interesting exception, according to a recent IDC survey, seems to be in spending plans for newer technologies like AI and the Internet of Things (IoT). Companies committed to digital transformation are clearly trying to understand the value as well as the costs of their technology investments -- and making strategic decisions accordingly.