KUALA LUMPUR: The Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with the second Movement Control Order (MCO) announced by the government, is driving local businesses to seek and adopt new technologies to improve productivity and operational efficiencies.
IBM Malaysia manging director Catherine Lian said although current circumstances have been challenging and even painful for various businesses, the pandemic has highlighted just how important digital transformation is for companies to survive and thrive in a constantly changing new norm.
"An uneven response to the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us that to operate effectively in the presence of an unanticipated crisis, organisations need to be agile, robust, and secure," said Catherine.
"They need to be able to seamlessly engage customers and employees in both physical and digital domains."
"True transformation is about making fundamental changes to operations and models to realise significant gains in value. It aligns decision-making, operations and date to anticipate and respond to disruptions, changing customer needs and new market opportunities – more so in challenging circumstances," she said.
Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had announced a second MCO following after a state of emergency declared until 1 August to curb the spread of Covid-19.
When the first MCO was announced in March last year, quite a number of businesses were compelled to expedite their digital transformation plans.
"Traditional barriers to digital transformation, such as opposition from employees and lack of technological expertise, have progressively fallen away as companies face the realities of working and collaborating remotely," said Catherine.
According to an IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) study, nearly six in ten responding organisations from 20 countries and 22 industries globally had expedited digital transformations due to the pandemic.
The study showed that executives surveyed faced a proliferation of initiatives due to the pandemic and were having difficulty focusing, but do plan to prioritise internal and operational capabilities such as workforce skills and flexibility.
"These are critical areas to address in order to jumpstart progress," said Catherine.
"Leaders are increasingly relying on technology for mission-critical aspects of their enterprise operations."
The study revealed three proactive steps that emerging leaders surveyed are taking to survive and thrive.
They encompass improving operational scalability and flexibility, applying artificial intelligence (AI), automation and other exponential technologies to help make workflows more intelligent, and leading, engaging and enabling the workforce in new ways.
Catherine also encouraged the local small and medium business (SMB) community to start embracing technology as a business enabler, and to be more innovative in their business models.
"Innovation is more than just invention; it is the intersection between invention and insights to create the process of converting ideas into commercially successful products and whatever the circumstances," said Catherine, adding that AI and an open hybrid cloud are two dominant forces driving transformation.
"A hybrid cloud platform approach delivers 2.5 times more value than a traditional approach," she added.
"Without these two main components, no company can achieve the levels of speed and agility required to thrive in current circumstances."
Visionary businesses have adopted AI and cloud-based remote collaboration tools and are seeking data-driven insights to fast-tracking innovation and transforming operations from inside and outside.
"We see this in human resource, procurement, finance and supply chain, as well as in customer engagement marketing and sales," Catherine said.
A scalable, secure and flexible cloud-based information technology (IT) infrastructure has been key for businesses to adapt their operating models to the new online reality and make a seamless shift to remote workforce.
"This has resulted in an acceleration in the adoption of hybrid cloud and AI allowing businesses to navigate uncertainty, adapt to changing conditions and become more resilient."
"Having partnered with Malaysia for 60 years now, IBM's mission is to be the orchestrator of our clients' cognitive enterprises and to consistently support the government's vision to develop a knowledge-based digital society and transform it into a high-income nation through the socialisation of transformative technologies," Catherine said.