May 13, 2021 - A recent study from Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) found that digital preparedness significantly helped healthcare organizations adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The EIU interviewed business leaders across eight distinct industries about the challenges, opportunities, and disruptions created for organizations and how digital initiatives shifted to adapt to COVID-19.

The study looked specifically at supply chains, remote work, predictive analytics, decision making, employee safety, and well-being. 

Leaders cited digital preparedness as key to their ability to adapt during the pandemic, followed by employee engagement. Skill-building, well-being, and creating lasting benefits for society at large also led the transformation for many organizations.

The percentage of all respondents citing employee engagement as imperative for their organizations increased from 24 percent before COVID-19 to 36 percent during the pandemic. 

Employee engagement was especially critical for manufacturing, financial services, retail, and education, with each industry experiencing percentage increases of 10 percentage points or more during the period. 

Business leaders explained that the pandemic highlighted the need to contribute more powerfully to social outcomes as well. 

For example, 75 percent of leaders stated that digital transformation should go beyond business success to support societal improvements, such as creating a more inclusive workforce and addressing carbon footprint and climate change. 

While on the other hand, digital tools became indispensable infrastructure across industries. 

“Those with robust digital footprints reported more agility in facilitating remote work, supporting distributed roles, recovering disrupted supply chains and transacting with customers in new ways,” researchers explained.

Therefore, organizations across industries boosted their transformation initiatives and began to rely more on digital tools. About 50 percent of organizations said cloud technology played a critical role in their COVID-19-era operations.

This was followed by remote work (40 percent), artificial intelligence and machine learning (33 percent), and the Internet of Things (31 percent). 

“We’ve long seen the advantages that digital transformation brings customers — and this data gives us concrete insights into how industries have handled the challenges of the past year,” Deb Cupp, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for enterprise and commercial industries, said in the announcement. 

“The findings confirm trends we’ve seen emerging and reinforce our commitment to delivering insights, products and services that help customers in every industry pivot when they need to, empower workers of all kinds and achieve more,” Cupp continued. 

But the COVID-19 pandemic exposed digital gaps in different ways as well. Across all industries, the “human side” of technology transcended their responses and potentially overshadowed benefits to business.

Researchers found significant gaps in healthcare, along with automotive, education, financial services, government, manufacturing, media and communications, and retail and consumer goods. 

For healthcare, organizations relying on in-person interaction may have had the most transformation to do when the pandemic hit, including remote employee and patient experiences. 

And maintaining strict compliance with patient privacy regulations, administrators, and clinicians expanded virtual capabilities as COVID pressure increased investments. 

Overall, the EIU research team concluded that the more focused companies were on digital transformation, the faster they could recover operations and empower people to move forward.

Companies see digital transformation as crucial in overcoming skill gaps, engaging employees, and delivering broader benefits to society, explained Michael Gold, managing editor at the EIU.

“The COVID-19 pandemic showed how digital tools are critical in allowing businesses to create agility and respond to major disruption,” Gold continued.