2020 has been a tumultuous year for many business owners and has brought many changes and challenges to the way businesses are run on the daily. Technology is now an undisputable essential for businesses, small to large, to run smoothly even with the ongoing pandemic. Read on to take a look at the changes that have taken place in the past year and what other digital transformation trends that we can look forward to in 2021.
Transformation Trend 1. Greater Increase in E-commerce Traffic
E-commerce has been on the rise in the past decade, but never have we seen such a sharp increase in e-commerce sales and e-commerce businesses in a short period of time. Of course, this is due to lockdowns implemented in countries all around the world which resulted in people having to online shop instead of visiting brick and mortar stores. To minimise loss of revenue, most brands and businesses were pushed to digitalise their businesses for a fighting chance during the pandemic. In some extreme cases, business owners completely scrapped their physical stores and shift their business online entirely in order to save cost from rental fees. Digitalisation was an inevitable step, hastened by the unfortunate circumstance of Covid-19.
With the mass digitalisation of businesses in Singapore and globally, we can expect to see more brands shift focus to build their website, social media presence and a reliable point of contact online for a strong online presence in the upcoming year.
Transformation Trend 2. Hybrid Cloud
While cloud-based storage systems have been around for several years, their importance was deeply felt by business owners in 2020 when the government instructed employees to start working from home entirely. Businesses that did not utilise cloud-based storage would have suffered during this transition since staff could not access working files and documents seamlessly from locations that are not their office. Disruption to the operations of the company would have also meant a significant loss in revenue. This phenomenon reinforces the importance of using cloud-based data storage software as it will allow businesses in Singapore to be more agile and adaptable to the ever-changing world.
With up to hundreds of employees accessing the same drive and documents simultaneously from different locations, confidentiality can be a concern. However, this will not be a concern if you are intending to use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) as it is a safe and secure cloud-based data storage choice for businesses with modules suitable for industries such as Accounting, Sales, Supply Chain & Distribution, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Project Management, Manufacturing Management, Warehouse Management and Service Management.
Transformation Trend 3. Remote Working Becomes the Norm
Adopting work-from-home in the long term can save a significant amount of costs for business owners since there will not be a need for offices and doing away with rental fees allows the company to use the money for other purposes. It is a viable option as lower operational costs for the business can also mean that products and services can be sold at a lower price, and hence attracting more customers or clients.
However, working from home is only possible with the use of a reliable and secure ERP like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central as it allows you to share stored information safely across all Microsoft channels (Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel), which allows for seamless work experience. With that said, working from home will definitely be here to stay at least for the next couple of years, at least in Singapore.
Learning from 2020
A year like 2020 encompasses many lessons that business owners can learn from, but the biggest takeaway would be to always keep your business and business processes updated, relevant and at the forefront of technology, as we will never know what life throws at us. Find out how Naviworld can help to streamline your business processes to keep up with the times today.
