The relationship between trust, resilience and experience

Source: Fujitsu. The work situation in Asia according to businesses in Thailand, the Philippines and Hong Kong. Ninety-one percent said they will need a social distancing solution when they return to the office.

Companies have been actively investing in digital transformation (DX) and reaped rewards from it even before the pandemic began. A global DX survey* from Fujitsu conducted before lockdowns occurred globally found that 70% of organisations were already implementing DX, while 35% had already delivered tangible business outcomes.

These findings were shared by Yoshikuni Takashige, Chief Strategist, Fujitsu, at the company's ActivateNow virtual event. He said that COVID-19 is accelerating existing trends. "We're still not out of the crisis but we have the opportunity to reimagine a new world and a new society," he said.

Takashige also noted that the results from China and Singapore showed that both countries scored above the global average for DX. "The 21st century are the years of Asia and Asia has the potential to lead in this new normal," he said.

Three pillars will guide Asia's journey from now on to successful DX, Takashige said: experience, resilience and trust. Experience refers to transforming the way employees work, and energising them; resilience is about the ability of the business to cope with uncertainty, while trust is critical with stakeholders for business growth, he explained.

Experience

Alfee Lee, Regional CTO, Fujitsu Asia, shared the results of a separate survey conducted in September 2020 involving Thailand, the Philippines and Hong Kong, where the large majority of respondents said they would need new technology when returning to the office, such as social distancing solutions, visitor and employee health screening solutions, as well as solutions for operations transformation.

"Although the majority of companies have shifted to remote working, they think safety in the office is a high priority and they also want technology to automate basic tasks so their people can work from home productively," he commented.

Fujitsu's own solution was to adopt the Work Life Shift programme, featuring contact tracing, temperature screening and visitor management. Back-end operations were further automated to support hybrid work-from-home and work-from-office workstyles, and office spaces have been redesigned to promote creativity.

"This could be the future of work, a kind of borderless office, a hybrid way of work," said Takashige. In conclusion, he suggested:

- People should be allowed to choose their way to work

- Process automation be used to support people, so that they can work more creatively and collaborate even in a remote environment

- Redesigning offices to be significantly safer and much more creative

Resilience

"In this truly uncertain environment it is truly critical to build resilience, the capability to respond to change with agility and flexiblity," said Takashige.

Lee noted that hybrid cloud models provide a good foundation for resilience, and that Fujitsu can combine the Internet of Things, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to help strengthen data-driven management. He shared the case of a Thai retailer which was able to use Fujitsu solutions to reduce manual processes and human error; enhance demand forecasts, improve sales and profits as well as manage inventory.

"Cloud will give the necessary agility, scalability and flexibility required for this new normal," noted Takashige. "It is very important to accelerate data-driven management to sense changes and deliver better value for your customers."

Trust

According to the global DX survey from Fujitsu, 68% of businesses are concerned about cyberattacks against critical social infrastructure, and 72% are worried that organisations are exploiting their private data without permission.

Fujitsu addresses such concerns with security built into its technology, and is committed to use AI to build further trust in its solutions, said Lee.

There is also the question of societal trust, which ties back to DX. Takashige said that 92% of organisations said in the global DX study that delivering value to society is important if the business is to be sustainable in the mid- to long term. At the same time, 89% said that DX has helped them deliver value to society, such as providing greater safety and wellbeing.

"It is now important to realign your business goals to societal goals and as a business leader Fujitsu has a responsibility to support you," Takashige concluded.

*The survey was conducted in February 2020 and covered nine countries, including Japan, Singapore and China. Respondents excluded those from purely-online businesses.