Article Written by Macharia Ngatia, CEO Agency 254, Tech Firm
Has COVID-19 Hit you?
As a tech firm, yes, we are struggling just like any other business, however we were not hardly hit as we had all the necessary technology in place, it was just a matter of stretching our working habit. That’s where we struggled most achieving but now, we could say we are relatively okay.
I feel like grand ideas of the “gig economy” and work/life balance are about to be tested like never before. Will people be able to work as flexibly as surveys suggest? A Research survey for our team revealed that 65% of Agency 254 workers claimed they would be more productive if they were able to work remotely or from home. Will they say the same when this crisis is over?
There is an opportunity to use technology to change our habits and how society operates, and we should take it. The present reality is that we have too much of garbage in, garbage out economy. At both individual and societal level, our use of technology is less intelligent than it should be, while at the same time our expectations of what we think technology can do outstrip its capabilities.
How do you think technology can help businesses survive at these times?
It’s wise for all businesses to come up with functionalities on their websites like portals or ERP systems where employees can be managed without the necessity of personal touch.
Businesses can also register G-suits. Other than efficiency in business communications, G-suit comes up with google sheets, google docs, google forms, google hangouts whereby you can have team conferencing and collaboration. Some other companies are using skype and zoom for conferencing. Use Telegram to share large files.
What advice do you have to businesses today?
Covid-19 has come up as a wakeup call for businesses to realize the beauty of artificial intelligence. Some meetings can be emails. People should invest in permanent real-time technology. Working from home should not be because we have pandemics, it should be because it’s good and efficient to do the thing.
Today, customers are more concerned with efficiency than anything else in their business operations. Customer-based functionalities like interactive website with all the necessary information, live chat whereby customers can ask questions directly on your website and get instant answers will help businesses, especially at this time.
Even as many industries contract, there’s still a pressing need for technology that can do everything from keep cloud infrastructure running to designing e-commerce portals.
Millions of employees working from home will mean that systems engineers, business analysts, and product managers must recalibrate companies’ operations to deal with new, widely dispersed teams and networks. Technology is more vital than ever as the world (and the global economy) wrestles with this crisis