The New Digital Edge: Rethinking strategy for the postpandemic era
The future will belong to companies that put technology at the center of their outlook, capabilities, and leadership mandate. The imperative for a strategic approach to technology is universal, yet some companies are already leading the pack; their responses show that better overall technology capabilities, talent, leadership, and resources (what we call a company’s “technology endowment”) are linked to better economic outcomes.
Forrester’s latest research on digital business maturity shows that business leaders now consider accelerating the shift to digital business the most critical priority in 2021. It should come as no surprise that COVID-19 has widened the digital business gap between digitally advanced firms and firms that were caught off guard by the pandemic.
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, data analytics and cloud computing had been growing rapidly over the years (even decades). But in the short space of just seven months they have become essential in today’s society amid the current global health crisis.
The world of work is changing. Artificial intelligence, automation, and robotics will make this shift as significant as the mechanization in prior generations of agriculture and manufacturing. While some jobs will be lost, and many others created, almost all will change. Demand for technological, social and emotional, and higher cognitive skills will rise by 2030. How will workers and organizations adapt?