*By Otto Pohlmann
When the covid-19 pandemic swept the world between February and March 2020, companies had to rush to adapt to the changes brought about by the disease. Many businesses suspended face-to-face activities, office work was hastily replaced by home office and different technological solutions started to be used to optimize processes and maintain productivity. In the beginning, the order was simply to react to the changes without jeopardizing the organization's day-to-day activities. But after more than a year and a half in this new reality, it finally fell on IT teams, and the impacts of the new coronavirus finally show up in this area.
It is a period of intense digital acceleration, with new habits and resources emerging all the time. This entails significant changes within the corporate environment. Practically two out of three Brazilian companies (66%) have reformulated their IT infrastructure to meet this scenario, according to a global study carried out by Equinix. More than half (54%) scaled up their technology investments from the pandemic to align with the changes, and 59% of respondents accelerated their digital transformation strategies – rates above the global averages of 42% and 47%, respectively.
Every change in the technology area, even as simple as possible, has consequences for the area in the future. Therefore, it is natural that the context of transformation rapidly adopted by companies would undermine the relationship between work and technological solutions. It's hard to want to go back to what it was when new habits and behaviors started to be adopted and, mainly, assimilated. Even more, when you see that productivity, instead of falling as imagined, has even improved in certain cases. The increased presence of these tools did not end employment, after all, and allowed for considerable advancement in the way we work.
Thus, the real impact of the new coronavirus pandemic was not the rapid change in the face of recommendations for social distancing. That was just a reaction to a punctual need. The real transformations for IT teams are only now being seen, when the disease starts to show signs of control with the advance of vaccination. The reason is simple: the maturation time that each and every innovation needs to evolve and consolidate in a given area. Yes, adoption was quick, but in the beginning it was common to find mistakes and fix points in the use of technology. Over time, professionals get used to the novelty, and developers make the necessary corrections.
The advancement of the new coronavirus only reinforced that the technology should not be seen as something fixed, in which the company acquires the solution and uses it independently. In fact, it is a process, that is, something that grows and evolves from new knowledge that arises all the time and from the very way people relate to it. It is a mistake to reduce the analysis of any IT tool from isolated situations – especially from still recent solutions. It takes time to achieve all goals, even in a scenario where changes occur daily, such as we are currently experiencing.
Thus, it is recommended to see the IT area as an open project, in which changes are part of its routine. It is through them that professionals are able to experiment, test and, of course, make mistakes. Based on these lessons, it becomes easier to design and/or seek the best solutions that meet the reality of any business. Transformations and decisions can even be quick, but their assimilation takes as long as necessary for the complete development of the business.
* Otto Pohlmann It is CEO gives Centric Solution
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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