Business

Technology Trends in a Time of Crisis

COVID-19 has altered all our priorities and crisis is the new normal. We are working closely with our customers to adapt to the new normal and make it as comfortable for our employees, business stakeholders and clients as possible.

We have seen a surge in our work and dependency on the zCon offshore team and our clients are banking on us and our strength like never before. We are also motivated and happy to extend all possible support to our customers. We would like to share this experience with our network and colleagues.

We are building solutions with technologies like Azure Serverless, Dialogflow, and Twilio to help customers digitize some new processes to maintain business continuity.

Due to this crisis, we at zCon foresee an upward trend in a couple of technologies.

Tech Trend in Crisis

Cloud & Serverless Architecture

The crisis had pushed many transactions to go digital. Trends show a spike in online transactions, with more transactions and interactions happening through mobile and handheld devices. To support the growth and performance of overall IT Infrastructure, many CIOs are looking at cloud computing. Cloud adoption has drastically increased as compared to the last decade. Many IT Leaders have brought forward their decision to adopt cloud and have seen benefits.

Most ISVs have seen a drastic increase in their subscriber base, considering that everyone is working from home. Due to a global customer base, ISVs need to start thinking of managing infrastructure more effectively and efficiently. This is where serverless architecture will help them have a better balance between IT support and customer experience.

Some of the high-level benefits of cloud and serverless architecture in the current the crisis:

  • Seamless operations for business continuity.
  • Ability to manage the surge and increased demand.
  • Comfortable operational control while working from home.
  • Mundane administration and maintenance tasks managed by serverless architecture.
  • Ability to focus more on IT effectiveness rather than IT infrastructure management & support.

Monitoring Services and Solutions

Considering the need for privacy and information security, monitoring is very critical to ensure the organization’s objective and intellectual property concerns of stakeholders.

With such monitoring tools and solutions, you can:

  • Manage the productivity of remote workers.
  • Create an engaged and collaborative environment.
  • Provide secured access and privilege with self-service portals.

Cybersecurity

COVID-19 has posed a lot of challenges in cybersecurity. Due to digital adoption, work from home and use of shared infrastructure, cybersecurity attacks have increased, and they impose a threat to data security. It is a high priority to enforce information security policies, processes and tools to remote teams to safeguard business and the customers.

The focus areas are –

  • Security of mobile and handheld devices.
  • Extending security to the new and expanded environment.
  • Policies and processes for user access.
  • Monitoring, detection and quick response.
  • 24 by 7 support to global environments and clients.
  • Threat incidents and response.

Digital Assistants and Bots

The need for social distancing has made remote work mandatory. Working from home for more than 3 months can create a lot of mental stress for employees. Considering the need of 24×7 availability, increased number of working hours, and nature of common queries, many organizations have started to deploy digital assistants or chatbots.

Some of the benefits this brings:

  • Chatbots can be used through multiple channels like SMS, live chat, social media, or email.
  • 24 X 7 availability.
  • Chatbots help to collect data which can be collected and analyzed.
  • Responses by chatbots are consistent every time.
  • Cost-effectiveness.
  • Chatbots can respond to customers immediately.
  • Is the best way to communicate with businesses.

Process Automation and RPA

COVID-19 has forced many operations to change their processes. Processes are becoming more automated and this is expected to continue. The new process implementation is needed quickly, with more focus on the front-end teams and employees. RPA tools and automation play an important role in acceleration and digitization for many sectors like Healthcare, Logistics, Public Sector and Government.

RPA and Automation is able to help many businesses:

  • To manage large volumes.
  • Quickly tweak, customize, and implement widely.
  • Reduce dependency on human workforce.
  • Reduce workload of employees and improve satisfaction.
  • Improve overall productivity.

Health and Contact Tracing Solutions

As per WHO, COVID is going to be around for a while. Considering this and the lockdown opening strategy, employee health is a priority while designing the organization re-opening plan. Organizations must proactively ensure contact tracing and for that they must have data of workforce location. This will help in COVID-19 patient identification within company premises and build a quick contact tracing strategy to isolate the workforce. This will help to contain the possible virus spread across the company.

To this end, some infrastructure changes are needed:

  • Re-engineer HR processes and policies.
  • Reconfigure work sites and floors to ensure physical distancing.
  • Improve workplace safety measures and requirements.
  • Change shifts and manage crews to reduce exposure and overcrowding.
  • Implement tools and solutions for workforce tracking and contact tracing.

Touchless Interfaces

As part of the re-opening strategy, many governments and private organizations will be forced to implement new employee access policies and processes. Every organization has started implementing thermal check and tracking location data in real time to prevent possible spread within company premises. The premises must be disinfected regularly and overall infrastructure must be improved to avoid physical contact wherever possible.

Many organizations have started implementing:

  • Thermal scanners for individuals as well as multiple employees.
  • Face recognition access control.
  • Bluetooth enabled data collection and storage.

About zCon

Our mission: “We partner with our global customers by crafting quality ‘technovative’ solutions which add value and facilitate their success.”​

zCon’s expertise in Product Life-Cycle development has given us the opportunity to work with more than 130 global customers to date. Our team is a 105+ strong and growing multi-fold on a YoY basis. zCon’s revenue growth is constantly above market averages for the Indian IT SME Sector. Clients rely on our expertise for tailored product development in accordance with their business needs as well as to achieve better time-to-market and ROI on new launches, and cost optimization with ongoing maintenance and enhancements. We help customers end -to-end: right from product conceptualization to release, to creating a commercial proposition tailored to the target market.

 

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