Digital Transformation in the Time of COVID-19

The COVID-19 crisis caught many businesses off guard, and they could not handle all of the disruptions caused to their business and the marketplace at large. However, companies that underwent a digital transformation had a much easier time weathering the storm and capitalizing on new business opportunities that appeared due to the lockdown. Let’s take a closer look at what a digital transformation is and why implementing DevOps practices will help you get there faster.

In the old days, the term digital transformation referred to taking something offline and making it online. Nowadays, the definition has expanded to using various digital techniques to create transformative user experiences, new commercial models, and operating methods. For many companies, undergoing a digital transformation implies reinventing their company and building a bridge towards the future. This is one of the most significant digital transformation values since it allows businesses to manage better market changes, which are more critical now than ever before.

Whenever you get a new idea for an improvement to an existing product or a new one altogether, DevOps will allow you to go from the ideation stage to production a lot faster. DevOps practices make the entire infrastructure more testable, resilient, and dynamic, allowing you to implement changes without causing disruptions in the existing functionality. When we put all of this together, DevOps will enable businesses to increase the speed to market, which means that they will capitalize on new revenue streams a lot quicker.

To implement DevOps practices, your business needs to be cloud-ready because utilizing physical servers increases lead time. You have to order them from your provider, make rack space for them, and a lot of other time-consuming tasks. Cloud providers like AWS and Azure eliminate all of this by providing on-demand infrastructure. Now, you can launch a new server in minutes, scale the number of servers you need up and down depending on demand. This significantly lowers your overhead costs since you are only paying for what you use. On top of that, you have on-demand services eliminating the need to provision your databases manually. You can also utilize storage space, middleware, and other cloud services.

The COVID-19 crisis has changed the way companies are doing business. Such massive disruption has underscored the necessity of being agile and responding to changing market conditions. According to research by Deloitte, 75% of CEOs responded that the crisis had created new business opportunities for their companies which means that they need to have the right tools and methodology in place to make a shift and capitalize on those opportunities. The need and dependence on digital solutions are more significant than ever before, which will likely continue even when the crisis ends. 

We also have to keep in mind the work from the home culture that resulted from the worldwide lockdowns. Companies are now utilizing various cloud services to allow their employees to work from home, requiring long-term solutions. The new normal that we live in requires much planning to be prepared for the new normal. DevOps can help you with this since it can serve as a catalyst for accelerating changes in modern businesses and can help you change corporate culture, which is usually one of the biggest barriers to digital transformation. 

Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, companies were using DevOps principles to manage distributed teams and help them work closely together even though they were geographically on different continents. People, processes, and technology were all united towards one particular business goal, increasing the pace of innovation. DevOps can also help you prevent wasting human resources and tools by having a clear focus on what needs to be done. This frees up many resources that were previously designated for lesser priority items.

Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, companies were using DevOps principles to manage distributed teams and help them work closely together even though they were geographically on different continents. People, processes, and technology were all united towards one particular business goal, increasing the pace of innovation. DevOps can also help you prevent wasting human resources and tools by having a clear focus on what needs to be done. This frees up many resources that were previously designated for lesser priority items.

During a time of uncertainty, digital transformation becomes more important since it will allow you to be better ready for changing market conditions. In fact, we can see a great difference between companies that were digitally prepared for the lockdown and the ones that were not, and those companies are now scrambling to put together some kind of plan to move forward. Be better prepared to handle what happens in the future and start implementing your digital transformation and DevOps practices.