Data and digital transformations have increased exponentially in the workplace over the pandemic, with the role of and reliance on technology becoming more significant than ever before as more organisations adopt digital products and services to survive, said ACCA recently.
This has been the result of the maturing of digital applications to a level that’s made them widely usable and hyper-relevant in the current situation, the accountancy body added.
‘Technology and digital have helped many organisations to continue to operate – those already thinking about digitisation adapted better, while those who had historically resisted it found their problems amplified, said Narayanan Vaidyanathan, the author of a recently released ACCA report titled Digitisation and the Global Pandemic
“Many have had to accelerate their digital plans, and make huge changes to how an organisation actually works,” Vaidyanathan noted. “Home working has become the norm, and for managers this has demanded a change in style and approach – the rise of digital has meant the need for even more leadership from the front, with a strong human touch.”
The pandemic has also transformed how business is done, with a greater expectation that organisations will act with care and compassion, said Sam Ellis, chair of ACCA’s Global Technology Forum.
“The pandemic has, at least for now, reduced the tolerance for traditional hard-charging ways of doing business,” Ellis pointed out. “Organisations are thinking more critically about what their digital footprint says about their values and respect for the community.”
But we are very much still in unchartered waters, and I know that the accountancy profession is working hard to navigate ahead, facing these challenges head-on and leading from the front, he pointed out.
“The pandemic is a still-unfolding, and the future remains uncertain,” Vaidyanathan concludes observed. “But as the examples in this report show, the accountancy profession’s responding robustly, and informed by pragmatic risk management as well as an opportunistic embrace of change to make things better.”
