S&P Global, CFO Daily, and Digital Transformation

S&P Global - Business Optimism in the Post-COVID Age

There’s no doubt that COVID has caused tectonic shifts in the world of business. Previously standard practices have been exposed as inefficient and expensive, and the disruption that COVID brought with it laid the groundwork for digital transformation across multiple industries that was heretofore unseen outside of tech. The good news, as highlighted by S&P Global’s Market Intelligence Report, is that the recovery to COVID has bolstered business optimism, with myriad businesses responding to the disruption by adopting processes and technologies that are aligned with modern day customer expectations.

The report found that:

• 2020 saw widespread reinvention of business processes. 

• Disruption and reinvention are closely connected. 

• Pandemic-imposed practices have become permanent ways of working for many. 

• New requirements have driven lasting transformation of IT processes. 

• Transformation during 2020 aligns with increased IT spending across categories, however, that growth shows signs of slowing in key cases. 

All of this goes to show that there has been a monumental shift in the way businesses operate - from keeping up with customer demand, to employing workforces that are highly sought after, to keeping up with the latest public health guidelines so that they can protect those customers and employees. There is no sign of any of this slowing down - save for the last point. What are the key cases in which the trend may see a dip? More often than not, they’re ones that involve highly complicated processes that require a lot of facetime - ones that would benefit massively from an upgrade, but for which start-up costs are deemed too high.

Danielle Murcray - CFO Profile

Last Month’s CFO Daily Newsletter, put out by Fortune Magazine and written by Rey Mashayekhi, profiled AttackIQ CFO Danielle Murcray. The piece highlighted the challenges that tech companies have faced since the pandemic started, from managing remote workers to delivering on customer expectations. Danielle had been made the unofficial “Chief People Officer,” of the company, and so the particular challenges that lay in dealing with an entirely remote workforce, from handling change of state requests to monitoring productivity, fell under her purview. One of the highlights of the interview summed up the aforementioned findings from S&P Global - that it’s a priority at many tech startups to, “provide today’s in-demand tech talent with a flexible, employee-focused workplace culture,” in order to attract and retain their services.

That rings true not only for tech companies, but for all organizations looking to modernize and attract top talent in the 21st century, particularly in the post-COVID era. When prospective employees look at legacy enterprises, time after time they come across organizations with antiquated processes and technologies. That’s because top talent know that they’re not going to be able to get their work done as effectively using legacy systems as they would if they were at an organization that has undergone a digital transformation.

Implications for CXM and Digital Transformation

We’ve highlighted these pieces to underscore two points. First, customer expectations of every organization are soaring at unprecedented levels. That’s simple enough to understand, and a decent enough reason to prioritize Customer Experience Management as a philosophy and tool for making sure that those expectations are exceeded. It’s not just that, though - employee expectations have also shifted unequivocally. Whether workforces are hybrid or remote, the past two years have demonstrated that some level of remote work is here to stay. If that’s the case, it’s time that legacy industries recognize that they need to shift their processes and methodologies to align with the times, no matter how daunting that prospect may be. That’s not just a priority for CXM - it’s necessary to attract and retain top talent.