How can technology at speed create competitive advantage?

Use data to improve agility and power innovation

Data is a strategic asset. The largest companies use data to learn about their customers and employees by the second. And they get smarter just as quickly. This has all kinds of implications in terms of efficiency, cost savings, and customer and employee experiences.

Almost all businesses can use data to optimize operations. In the EY 2020 Tech Horizon survey, 71% of companies use insights from data and analytics to speed up innovation. In fact, it’s their number-one method of doing do so, ahead of re-engineering and automating processes (62%) and streamlining hierarchy (61%). And while companies generally understand the value data brings to their business, digital transformation leaders really get it: 83% are using data to help them innovate faster, compared with only 70% of digital transformation laggards.

On some level, companies should have been expecting and preparing for the escalation. Companies were adopting, on a massive scale and almost overnight, remote access technologies to enable work from home, exponentially increasing the attack surface. They were forced to rely more on cloud services to continue operations, making cyber resilience of a highly interconnected supply chain more challenging.

Meanwhile, rapidly changing customer behaviors and preferences in terms of interaction and expectations of trust drove a rapid deployment of digital channels to maintain competitiveness. In doing so, IT departments may have missed important risk assurance steps and exposed the broader ecosystem. This is hardly surprising given that only 36% of organizations say cybersecurity is involved right from the planning stage of a new business initiative. There may also have been a tendency during the pandemic to take data privacy less seriously, particularly in the context of the trade-off between personal privacy and societal interest.

With the immediate needs of the business mostly addressed, companies now need to refocus their attention back to cybersecurity. They need to quantify the cyber risk they assumed during the pandemic, redesign business models and programs in a way that connects cybersecurity teams directly to the business and strengthens relationships that have historically been strained. Companies also need to re-engage their privacy protection efforts.

Privacy regulations, such as the EU’s GDPR, remain in place. And while customers and employees may have forgiven a temporary relaxation of their privacy rights in the short term, any compromise in the long term will erode their trust in the company’s brand. Rather than thinking of privacy as a compliance exercise, companies would do better to consider privacy protection as a form of value exchange. In exchange for the data consumers and employees share, organizations need to build trust by providing value in return.

Given the complexity and fast-changing technology environment, going it alone becomes an increasingly risky proposition. Companies will want to expand their ecosystem of partners to include cybersecurity and privacy professionals.

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to cybersecurity or privacy protection, companies need to find a way to embed them into every aspect of their transformation journey if they want to maintain trusted relationships with their customers and employees, as well as the broader stakeholder community.

Embrace ecosystems and partnerships

Pre-pandemic, customers were increasingly demanding personalization, convenience and great experiences. Post-pandemic, this trend will only accelerate. At the same time, as we mention above, cyber risks are proliferating. Companies are learning that they can’t meet all of these demands alone. They will need partnerships, but they must also challenge sector boundaries to become nimbler and more able to innovate at scale. We see this as online retailers partner with brick-and-mortar stores to offer customers a more convenient experience, and in global technology companies tapping into ecosystems of start-ups to fuel technology development.

Market analyst IDC predicts² that by 2023 60% of the G2000 companies³ will have a digital developer ecosystem, and half of those enterprises will drive 20% of digital revenue through their digital ecosystem.

Yet, although companies see the potential of a partnership ecosystem, there’s still some resistance. More than half (54%) of corporations retain a general sense of scepticism about the opportunities partnerships present.

A “do it ourselves” culture has prevailed in business for decades. In a digital world, companies must break free of this mindset and become more collaborative and open to partnerships, rapidly dis-assembling and re-assembling value chains. After all, no single company can be expert in all areas of digital technology or cybersecurity. Teaming with others is the only way to safely harness new technology to its full potential to drive human-centered transformation and innovate at scale.

In a post-pandemic world, technology at speed will be an imperative for survival

Technology is connecting every aspect of our lives, providing more opportunities to grow and innovate. However, it requires businesses to create sources of value beyond the bottom line – people value, social value and customer value.

Leading companies are already doing this by seeing technology disruption as an opportunity rather than a threat and reinventing themselves to unlock new sources of value. The good news for those that have fallen behind is that the pandemic has provided an opportunity to reset the playing field. In a post-pandemic world, all companies will need to accelerate their digital journeys by putting humans at the center, embracing technology at speed and innovating at scale if they want to create a competitive advantage and thrive in a future that is being remade by today’s crisis.