There are multiple business challenges in 2020-2021 that C-levels and company owners need to resolve. Many of these issues have been aggravated due to the COVID-19 quarantine. According to the report by Gartner on emerging risks, while organizations continue to focus on digital initiatives and invest in them, two-thirds not only fail to deliver upon expectations, but also demonstrate enterprise weaknesses.
Analysts at Gartner revealed that many senior executives feel uncertainty associated with a clear path from the existing to future business models:
- 35% of business leaders said they were confident about what kind of initiatives they should prioritize and how much money they should invest in their strategies.
- Only 20% of the surveyed organizations had a clear understanding of how changes would positively affect them.
To overcome the current crisis and stay competitive at all times, you should develop a business continuity strategy tailored to industry-specific objectives. However, how to create this plan? How to automate workflow and increase efficiency?
In this article, we will consider the key business challenges in 2020-2021 for a C-level and ways to resolve them.
The 5 Key Business Challenges in 2020-2021
This year, a C-level will continue to prioritize digital initiatives employing innovative software solutions and approaches. Sensitive data protection and talent shortage are one of the most complex business challenges in 2020-2021 you should pay special attention to.
1. Data security and privacy
Information security has always been a top priority in our digital world. Even world-famous companies such as Yahoo and Facebook faced hacker attacks and data leaks.
In 2020, most organizations were forced to build remote workflows, which created new opportunities for cybercriminals. Companies are encountering an increasing number of data breaches, phishing scams, viruses, and other threats.
The global spending on cybersecurity has jumped over the past few years. In 2017, online users—both business and private—spent $34 billion on developing and/or integrating cybersecurity solutions. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, this amount was predicted to reach $42 billion in 2020, in accordance with the data collected by LearnBonds.
However, a growing remote workforce has posed additional challenges to the safety of confidential information. Experts at LearnBonds revealed that 68% of companies are going to increase their investment in cybersecurity as a response to the coronavirus crisis.
Now you should focus on data privacy, setting up robust passwords, employing a virtual private network (VPN), conducting staff training programs, using encrypted messages, and consulting with specialists. You should also consider the use of blockchain technology that provides safe data storage and decentralization.
Find out how to ensure information security and privacy when working remotely. The article is useful for office teams, too.
2. Talent shortage
Shortage of experienced specialists is one of the most popular business challenges in 2020 and 2021 that a C-level should resolve. Outsourcing can be very helpful if your goal is to find experts in a certain field while saving costs and quickly tackling the project. “How will I reduce expenses and start the project faster?”, you may ask.
When delegating tasks to a third-party contractor, you don’t have to look for and interview candidates on your own. A couple of months can pass until you recruit and onboard the best applicant. What’s more, outsourcing gives access to a variety of countries with lower salaries.
In 2019, Clutch, a trustworthy B2B ratings and reviews platform, surveyed 529 small firms in the USA to learn why business executives outsource:
- The primary reasons for process outsourcing are to boost efficiency (24%), receive assistance from experts (18%), increase flexibility (16%), relieve the time of employees for other revenue-generating activities (15%), and raise resource availability (12%).
- Businesses delegate more technical tasks associated with accounting (37%), IT services (37%), digital marketing (34%), and development (28%).
- More than one-third of small companies (37%) outsourced a business process in 2019. Organizations with 50 or fewer employees (29%) are less likely to delegate tasks to a third-party vendor compared to organizations that have over 50 employees (66%).
The demand for outsourcing services has increased due to the COVID-19 crisis. As now organizations need to adapt to the changing market environment following the coronavirus pandemic, many business leaders are going to delegate more tasks, in accordance with the report by NTT.
If you have some processes that can be carried out by a third-party contractor, think about outsourcing. This option provides many benefits, from raised productivity to reduced costs. When choosing a vendor, take into account its experience, client testimonials, and project reviews. In case you’re going to build a software solution, find out why Belarus is a great IT outsourcing destination.
3. Business process automation
BPA is one of the key business challenges in 2020 and the years to come. Through workflow automation, organizations reduce the time for completing manual, repetitive, routine, and data-intensive tasks while boosting staff productivity. With innovative software tools integrated into everyday operations, they also minimize human errors and increase the overall company’s performance.
A common question for a C-level is “How to automate business processes?”. There are many technologies that you can use for this purpose. RPA (robotic process automation), Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, chatbots, and mobile applications are examples of digital solutions that you can employ.
AI and software robots have already taken an important role in industries such as banking, healthcare, insurance, retail, logistics, manufacturing, construction and real estate. According to the report by LearnBonds, the use of AI-based software has jumped recently, helping businesses raise efficiency, speed, and quality.
Sophisticated AI-enabled algorithms allow companies to make successful decisions much faster, sometimes in minutes instead of several days.
The survey conducted by HFS Research in April found that besides focusing on cybersecurity, about 55% of organizations will increase their spending in automation solutions. The following IT investment priorities are Artificial Intelligence, hybrid/multi-cloud, and smart analytics with 46%, 49%, and 53% respectively.
Here are some cool statistics on AI and RPA:
- Analysts at Ideal company discovered that 64% of the surveyed consumers believe the primary advantage of AI-enabled bots is 24/7 support. 55% of customers said they especially appreciate fast responses.
- The worldwide RPA market revenues are forecasted to exceed $2.9 billion this year. (Statista).
- In accordance with the third annual RPA Survey conducted by Deloitte, 78% of organizations that have already integrated RPA technology expect to increase spending on it over the next three years.
How different companies resolved business challenges using software solutions:
- KLM airline company aimed to refine customer communications and enhance user experience by allowing them to talk with agents via social media channels.
However, after they provided this opportunity, the organization had a 40% increase in Facebook messages from users. To cope with numerous requests, it decided to employ an Artificial Intelligence solution that was trained to answer over 60,000 questions.
- Mobi, the worldwide leading provider of influencer and performance marketing services, had a problem with heavy document flow: the information was kept in various places, access to it wasn’t controlled.
Consequently, data search consumed a lot of time. To address these issues, the company integrated a centralized web portal for data storage and management.
Thanks to this solution, employees became able to devote themselves to more complex and revenue-generating tasks. Find out how this project was developed and what features it has.
If you need to streamline workflows and boost staff productivity, consider the use of advanced technologies such as AI, RPA, and IoT. Replacing humans in a range of activities, IoT can provide remote equipment monitoring and inventory tracking. AI is being widely employed for making faster and better decisions while RPA is used for automating manual and routine tasks.
4. Cloud migration
By 2023, the global cloud computing market is forecasted to reach over $623 billion growing from $272 billion (Report Linker). Being one of the main software development trends, transfer to the cloud provides various advantages, from reduced expenses and improved scalability to simplified infrastructure maintenance.
In accordance with the research by Opsramp, Skyhighnetworks, Directive, 47% of companies said cost savings was the primary reason to migrate.
You should migrate to the cloud when:
- Your current app or system is built on top of the outdated technology stack.
- The goal is to scale the system but it is quite challenging due to its heaviness.
- You need to ensure ease of infrastructure maintenance, provide scalable data storage, and save costs.
- You are going to create a web or mobile application that will process numerous requests per second providing the seamless user experience even when there is slow Internet connection.
“Today an increasing number of companies start to use the cloud aiming to optimize costs and improve infrastructure maintenance. However, it is very important to migrate properly. First and foremost, you should find a reliable IT service vendor that will help you prepare a successful cloud migration strategy and make a transfer.” —Andrew Volchek, CEO and Co-Founder at Arateg.
How to transfer to the cloud properly?
When preparing a cloud migration strategy, estimate how much cloud capacity your company will need, analyze the load on servers, and see how you can balance it: say, some of the servers can be overloaded while others are almost not utilized.
Choose a trusted cloud service provider such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or IBM Cloud. If you work with large amounts of sensitive data, you should encrypt it in the cloud in order to prevent security threats and breaches.
5. Changing and uncertain business environment
At the moment, a C-level should modify their business models to adapt to the changing market environment following the COVID-19 outbreak.
If you ask yourself questions like “How to optimize business processes?”, “How to automate workflow?”, “How to boost sales during and after the pandemic?”, consider the following activities:
- Focus on building your digital transformation strategy. Digital transformation is a challenging, long-term process beyond corporate software choice and staff training. However, investing in this process secures companies’ future, as businesses shall evolve with their audience. Using software solutions, you can reduce errors, ensure information security, streamline request processing, enhance document management, raise employee productivity, and more.
For example, if you want to keep track of all sales activities, improve lead generation, and increase revenue, you can integrate a CRM system. In case you have hundreds of user queries per day, think about automating this process via a chatbot.
- Employ remote collaboration tools. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that distant cooperation can help business executives and employees save a lot of time and effort. Use messengers, online file sharing and editing apps, audio and video conferencing software, etc.
- Create a mobile application to reach users via their smartphones. The number of smartphone users globally is forecasted to hit 3.5 billion by the end of this year while the mobile application market is expected to generate over $581 billion in revenue (Statista).
Recently, mobile app usage has significantly increased (according to the statistics by App Annie, the worldwide time spent per week in mobile apps and games on Android devices raised 20% in the first quarter of 2020), including online shopping, video streaming, e-learning, gaming, online trading, and banking services. By making a mobile solution, you will attract more customers and boost sales.
- Improve customer experience. For instance, you can build a client web portal where users will be able to send emails, quickly find the required information, schedule appointments and online consultations with experts, and receive tailored advice via the platform. As a result, requests will be processed faster, virtual communications will allow you to serve more customers, and personalized recommendations will help you better resolve issues.
For more information, download a PDF guide on how to set up a remote workflow and raise productivity in the time of COVID-19.
Closing Thoughts
To resolve the key business challenges in 2020-2021, you should analyze what problems your company has, what processes you can improve, and what resources you have. Thoughtful planning, commitment to the strategy, and flexibility are those things that will help you stay competitive in this uncertain time.
Make a digital transformation work for you: for example, with inexpensive (especially compared with complex software systems) RPA software robots and AI-based chatbots, you can significantly automate workflows and increase staff productivity.
If you want to build a software solution or request a project consultation, feel free to drop us a message. We also recommend you reading how different sectors are struggling with the COVID-19 crisis.
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