The Covid-19 epidemic has forced the business and the political world leaders to conclude the same thing – digital transformation is the need of the hour.
In a matter of just a few months, Covid-19 has caused a paradigm shift in the way we interact with our outside world.
Containment measures, quarantines, lockdowns and travel bans have forced people all over the world to resort to social media, e-learning and online shopping.
Simultaneously, as a response to strenuous social distancing measures, educational institutions and companies are adopting digital technology at break-neck speeds.
According to a study by Deloitte and Institute of International Finance, insurers and banks have been able to withstand the onslaught of Covid-19 thanks to their investments in digital technology in the past decade.
Employees can now work from any location, thanks to cloud computing. Data centres can now be linked across multiple sites. This has enabled financial institutions to reduce risks more efficiently.
No longer do organisations have to depend upon any single venue for all their resources, lest it becomes a hotspot for coronavirus.
Emerging technologies which were gradually finding their pace., have suddenly out to compete with the existing robust technologies. In a recent interview, Satya Nadella , CEO of Microsoft highlighted how he just saw two years’ worth of digital transformation in just two months.
The evolution of businesses now lies in building long-term, cloud-based, digital infrastructures that drive future-of-work, future-of-experiences, data management and connected innovations. APIs can be a great way to answer this evolution.
Building An API First Economy Is Imperative
Today, companies are building their technology in a way so that they are good for repeat use.
Corporate history is witness to the fact that modularity and interoperability have led to competitive advantage, time and again.
In the world of IT, application programming interfaces or APIs are key to supporting design modularity and interoperability. As architectural techniques go, APIs are as old as computer science itself.
They facilitate the way solutions and systems execute transactions, invoke business logic and exchange information.
Today, APIs play a critical role in system modernisation, innovation and architecture. According to Deloitte, the number of public APIs that were available in early 2017 was more than 18,000. To be sure, private APIs across conglomerates are expected to be in the millions today.
As of today, the customer, a human being is craving for a connection and comfort right now. The most important question that any company can ask itself is how to add value to his or her life in a relevant, human and meaningful way without doing much to their existing systems.
For instance, the global epicentre of the coronavirus, China, had shut down all retail businesses. People were unable to partake in one of the most communal comforts across Chinese restaurants, hot pot dining.
So that people do not miss out on one of their most enjoyable local cuisines, restaurant chains began to deliver the ingredients to the individual residences of the customers. Even when the restaurants were shut, the patrons could still enjoy their favourite meal all because they could collaborate in a single platform quickly.
Onboarding your employees and customers is a must have now. It is easily referred to as Digital onboarding, a series of activities which companies use for getting new employees/customers and making them familiar with the policies/products of the organisation via digital platforms.
According to the Inside Magazine Issue 16 Deloitte research, around 38 percent of all customers drop out of the onboarding process. This is due to the tediousness surrounding paperwork &multiple touchpoints.
A number of organizations are using it aggressively for their new recruits. With the platform’s capability to be accessed from anywhere, new recruits can begin the digital onboarding even before they join the physical premises. Since all the forms, modules and forms are generated from a single database, there will not be any lack of consistency with the onboarding process across locations.
The electronic interface ensures that management has a firm grasp on the status and progress of the onboarding process for each new recruit. Any new employee can complete the onboarding process from a location of their choice.
Employees can complete the onboarding at a speed of their choice. Nothing ever gets missed because the online platform ensures complete compliance.
In the movie Apollo 13, Gene Kranz, played by Ed Harris, overhears a director comment that the Apollo 13 debacle is the worst disaster that NASA has ever experienced. He replies that, with due respect to the director, he believed that it was going to be their finest hour.
The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked untold havoc on the global business and economy. Yet, companies all over the world are rediscovering themselves through digital transformation.
Thanks to innovations such as API & digital onboarding, organisations are successfully turning the tide in their fight against the Coronavirus.
