As you read the article, you become one of the 4.57 billion people of the earth who are connected to the internet – that’s nearly half of the people on earth. Some are shopping online, some are catching up with friends, or some like you, are reading this. Others manage global business supply chains; respond to customer service requests or build apps for presumably ‘changing the world’.

The rapid integration of internet and digital solutions in business has opened enormous opportunities – long before the COVID-19 crisis began and upturned the world we live in, globalization, rapid developments in technology have shaped company operations.

After lockdowns took hold, people’s behaviour changed overnight – many companies found their revenues shrank to zero, citing pandemic as a key reason. There might be existing issues before as well, but the spread of virus brought a sudden change in their operations. The volatility, uncertainty, ambiguity and complexity that businesses face right now has a potential to yield surprising changes. This year itself, we have seen the prices of crude oil drop to negative levels – traditionally stable supply chains have indeed faced a disruption; a rebound can take some time.

It becomes important to understand how a work is actually being carried out – to formulate a better process. One can be left surprised if scrutinized judiciously – take an example of process automation. There are possibilities that employees might be supplementing computer systems with manual and offline tasks. Another revelation can be the number of phone calls needed to gather missing information and informally collaborate with others in order to complete a process. Assumptions can lead to an ineffective re-engineering effort.

Even in OHS endeavours, insight and understanding of execution of work remains a key aspect to access, connect and analyse safety-critical data (incidents, safety operations, behaviours) etc.

Be it the focus on specific business processes to improve process effectiveness (i.e. to help improve performance metrics) or to improve process efficiency (i.e. reduce the waste within the process), going digital gives some sort of a quantitative approach to the industry professionals for assessing process intricacies.

Collaborative insights and inspired actions

Digital adaptability by no means is a magical potion – industries should try to continuously evolve to stay closest to the pulse of their customers and industrial workers and keep an eye on their undertakings. To stay ahead of each situation and scenario, it is important to overcome this ‘lack of clarity’. It’s just not about capturing more data, but leveraging a massive quantity of real-time data and interpreting it to proceed on risks and opportunities with confidence and acute precision.

A business technology platform offers a range of intelligent technology that automates processes and discovers patterns, while matching them with relevant solutions.

For connected workers, products and machines, a comprehensive software solution that focuses on manufacturing, operations and management paves the way for better operations, lowers risks and increases safety through its aggregated data. One can gain an integrated ecosystem of data warehousing and analytics, reducing the friction of using individual methods to turn data into action and prevent unnecessary data movement within the industrial landscape.

With data harmonization, the organization develops the agility to quickly turn data into business value, when navigating disruption and uncertainties. As a team, industries can infuse a ‘can-do’ spirit among their employees – real-time analytics and capabilities help them steer through the murky landscape of unanticipated scenarios.