Responsible digitalisation: the road ahead

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic, marking the beginning of a period of significant disruption. The pandemic has had a significant impact on economic activities and human lives, and its long-term effects will be visible after more than a year.

However, opportunities galore whenever there are disruptions. The businesses that were forced to scale down their operations due to the health risks faced by their workforce and stay-at-home orders issued by authorities worldwide quickly realised that they could utilise digital tools and technologies to bring back an acceptable level of productivity from their workforce.

Collaborative and communicative technologies had become the single-largest contributor towards the continuation of business activities during the early months of the pandemic. Business leaders, decision-makers, and knowledge workers had started working from home or remote locations and were communicating with each other by using communication devices and digital infrastructure. As a result, businesses of technology companies focusing on such communication and collaboration tools have surged.

Other businesses gradually started adapting to the new normal and found ways of remaining functional during the pandemic. Companies that were not ready with the necessary digital infrastructure lagged significantly in continuing with their business operations.

Organisations that already had digital collaboration and cloud infrastructure continued with their business activities to a great extent. Companies that had already embarked on a journey of digitalisation had started showing clear signs of resilience and success.

The followers of such successful organisations started emerging fast. Most such companies started accelerating their digital transformation programmes through various mandates. The expectations of stakeholders also started growing rapidly. The success of large tech companies has prompted many technology service providers to recalibrate their growth plan with newer ambitions, thus marking the beginning of the digitalisation rush.

Digital transformation programmes are also subjected to various risks, one of them being the increased risk of cyber-attacks. As per a PwC survey in which 5,050 CEOs from 100 countries participated, business leaders identified the increased threat of cyber-attacks as one of the major concerns while running their businesses.

Since a magnanimous cyber heist that took place nearly five years ago, organisations in Bangladesh have evolved significantly with respect to improving their cyber protection infrastructure, adopting globally recognised security standards and practising the secure way of doing business. However, cyber criminals have significantly improved their attacking techniques in the post-pandemic period. Hence, cyber security professionals and cyber criminals will continue to work towards outdoing each other in the coming years, and business leaders must develop long-term cyber security strategies to deliver sustained outcomes for stakeholders.

It should be noted that the pandemic has compelled many common people, including senior citizens, to start using digital means for accessing essential services. While this has significantly improved the digital literacy of the common people, gaps in cyber security awareness continue to be an area of concern.

A large segment of the population is now a regular part of the digital community, thereby increasingly exposing themselves to cyber risks. 

This is where business leaders need to lead the way with their responsible approach towards digitalisation. Not only do they have to upskill their workforce with cutting-edge digital skills to accelerate businesses, but they must also improve cyber security awareness to minimise the cyber risks faced by their organisations. At the same time, the same business leaders must focus on catalysing the cyber security awareness development for all their stakeholders –customers, investors, and regulators regulating their area of business.

The government also needs to improve its outlook towards responsible digitalisation. While promoting the digital way of delivering citizen services will continue to push the country towards further development, it should equally focus on developing digital and cyber security awareness for its citizens before exposing them to the new ways of receiving services and benefits. 

The rapid acceleration of organisational digital transformation worldwide has significantly increased the risk of misinformation spreading. The spread of misinformation, particularly during the peak of the pandemic, impacted businesses as well as public health significantly.

The digital spread of fact-based and trustworthy information helped the world in managing public health crises and safety in many occasions. At the same time, the spread of misinformation using the same digital tools and social media has slowed down the implementation of many good healthcare programmes, such as vaccinations, in many geographies. So, the leaders responsible for running the information dissemination programmes must ensure that their citizens receive fact-based and trustworthy information in the most effective way for them to improve their daily lives.

Responsible digitalisation also includes an astute focus on its impact on the climate. Leaders must be ready to challenge the popular belief that any digital transformation initiative is a climate-friendly one. Their digital transformation agenda must have an element of delivering sustained outcomes towards improving the key climatic parameters such as carbon footprint.

Leaders across private businesses and government organisations should be ready to display a performance metric that shows how climate-friendly a digital transformation strategy is. For example, a digital transformation programme that also strives to achieve net-zero targets is an ideal one.

Finally, responsible digitalisation should also pay attention towards reducing the digital divide among citizens and addressing rising economic inequality.

According to an article published by the World Economic Forum, the post-pandemic economic recovery in many countries has followed a "k-curve", and that would certainly not be the desired outcome for them. As per the article, countries should adopt a tech-led strategy to address the possibility of a "k-shaped" recovery. Leaders must be focused on this aspect as well while leading their respective digitalisation agenda.

The writer is a partner with PwC. The views expressed here are personal.