When a disaster rears its head and disrupts business, smart organizations see opportunity, with many opting to kick-start digital transformation and process automation initiatives in order to ensure long-term business continuity and resiliency. Implementing Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions to establish effective digital infrastructure serves as an optimizer of efficiency, which reduces costs in turn, allowing organizations to weather the storm of difficult business and economic environments. As such, organizations can benefit from immediate and long-term effects of initiating digital transformation through effective document management, enabling them to be ready for whatever disaster or disruption comes their way.

Digital transformation as a response to disruption

Within only months after COVID-19’s arrival, it disrupted the global business and economic landscape. The spread of coronavirus exposed major inefficiencies in systems central to business and institutional processes worldwide.

Many technologies were already driving digital transformation, but COVID-19 brought them to the forefront. Online education and distance learning systems are now more common, and telemedicine appointments are paving the way to enabling healthcare organizations to provide more extensive services when facilities are full or when it’s not advisable for patients to come in-person.
The widespread effect the virus has had on the global social and economic ecosystems highlights the necessity for businesses and other organizations to implement digital transformation plans immediately in order to ensure continuity during the crisis, as well as resiliency and even growth in the future.

A recent article in Forbes details the basic steps that companies should undertake in order to establish a digitally enabled ecosystem that can help prepare and respond to major disruptions, establishing long-term business resiliency through digital means.

As outlined in the Laserfiche Digital Transformation Model, organizations can leverage Electronic Content Management (ECM) solutions to optimize business processes, enhance company culture and elevate the customer experience. An essential part of establishing a successful and functional digital office, developing a digital transformation strategy is especially important in this business environment where employees and clients are working from home on an unprecedented scale worldwide, as well as to streamline innovation in order to stay competitive.

Business Disruptions as a Digital Accelerator

When competing in a modern business environment, having a digital presence is considered a prerequisite for effective performance. Online and app-based companies have pushed organizations in a wide range of sectors to innovate and adopt new technologies in order to boost efficiency, as well as assess risks and develop goals using highly granular data, analytics and AI modeling. In regards to digital disruptions, McKinsey positions technology as not only a disruptor, but also as a means of avoiding and mitigating trends and activities associated with the previous global financial crisis in 2008, as well as providing companies with the tools to further optimize profitability.

According to a recent article by EY, entrepreneurs and corporate intrapreneurs have historically developed innovative and capital-efficient business ideas during periods of economic downturn and instability. These ideas are generated in response to major issues and insufficiencies seen in economic, business and societal contexts due to the pandemic, aimed at resolving immediate problems with long-term business implications.

The difficulties faced by businesses in adapting to COVID-19 can be seen through a similar lens as a catalyst to innovate and change. In the midst of another period of economic downturn and global financial crisis, savvy business leaders will avoid operating in a business-as-usual mindset and invest in digital infrastructure and solutions to secure their organization’s future.

As such, organizations should develop and implement technological solutions that help to streamline costs and provide detailed data that business leaders can use to execute major strategies. Content management and process automation core components of the Laserfiche ECM suite equip organizations with tools that can help overcome challenges and set goals, including remote collaboration, project management, data analytics and more.

An ECM solution such as Laserfiche can empower organizations with reporting and analytics that help to drive business innovation, support smarter business decisions and gain insights to respond to critical business issues. These solutions contribute to organizations’ financial recovery, as well as long-term resiliency and competitive growth.

Develop your roadmap for optimizing innovation and digital transformation for the new normal

In the wake of COVID-19, it’s clear that companies worldwide are rapidly adopting new IT measures, including further utilization of ECM systems, to ensure long-term business continuity and resiliency, maximizing the effectiveness of remote operations in order to meet client expectations and demands in a rapidly evolving economic and business environment.