Is There Business After COVID?

The pandemic has formed new conditions for all markets and business areas. Restructuring business processes, changing economic priorities and the whole chain of tasks is the result of the pandemic’s impact around the world and in Ukraine. You Control think tank polled entrepreneurs on how the Ukrainian business changed after COVID-19.

Attitude toward employees has changed

The changes affected approaches to working with employees. Managers plan to switch to remote work and shrink office space. Some employees will work remotely even after the pandemic ends.

In addition, people having skills to implement and support digital solutions, flexibility and ability to adapt to unstable circumstances are now relevant for business.

Sixty-eight percent of managers believe that communication with employees has improved during the crisis.

 New incentives for digital solutions have appeared

Thirty-nine percent of CEOs believe that the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation and the creation of a next-generation operating model. With the development of analytics, artificial intelligence, process automation and the Internet of things, the companies of the future will become more “digitised.” There will be fewer employees but they will have the entire set of new skills necessary in our time.

The companies expect that the introduction of digital technologies will primarily boost efficiency and reduce costs. However, this is often not a long-term detailed action plan with a timeline of initiatives. The companies usually implement a set of short-term projects to introduce a certain technology. In particular, these are as follows:

• Robotic process automation (RPA)
• Chatbots for customer service
• Analytics or machine learning for operational processes

Managers will continue to have to make difficult personnel decisions and prioritise investments. Already, 67% of managers say that they mainly invest in the purchase of new technologies, while only 33% admit they invest more in staff development.

Lower confidence in the future

Despite the general understanding of trends, the crisis has shaken the confidence of leaders in the growth of the world economy. About a third of respondents admit that they have lower confidence in the prospects for global growth in the next three years. However, they are more confident about their own companies as there is more control and leverage.

Therefore, 72% of polled managers expect their organisations’ profits to grow in the next three years even against the background of the economic downturn in Ukraine. Potential growth directly depends on how quickly they will be able to introduce the necessary digital changes.

You Control think tank