Businesses were not fully digitally ready for Covid-19

HYDERABAD: A new study by Pegasystems Inc. reveals that most business leaders overestimated the state of their digital transformation efforts – which hampered their ability to adapt to the pandemic. Nearly three quarters (74%) of business decision-makers said the crisis exposed more gaps in their business operations and systems than they originally expected. Pega surveyed more than 1,200 business decision makers around the world for their perspectives on how their organization has been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.

The results include responses from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and Australia. As a result, business leaders are vowing not to let their lagging technology infrastructure put them at risk for the next crisis. 71 percent say the pandemic experience has forced them to accelerate their DX plans; 62% will increase the priority level of DX within their organization; and another 56% will add more DX investment.

With these new DX plans in place, nine of out 10 business leaders feel confident they will be prepared to face a similar crisis. The survey found the three most popular DX projects needed to prepare for a future crisis were: cloud-based systems (48%), customer relationship management (CRM) software (41%), and AI-driven analytics and decisioning.

MAIN FINDINGS

• more than half (54%) conceded they should have done more to help their customers during the
• crisis.
• Over one-third (37%) communicated at least one message to customers that wasbadly received and damaged their brand reputation.
• Over one-third (36%) said they lost customers during the pandemic due to failings in their 
• communications.