Entering the era of IT, which is essential for the spread of global infections

Entering the era of IT, which is essential for the spread of global infections

With the spread of the new coronavirus infection worldwide, digitization is progressing at a much faster pace than in normal times. The development of image recognition temperature measurement equipment, non-contact mirror devices, and multi-faceted smart glasses without a display, which will become commonplace in the next one to two years, is progressing. Will the shift to digital be smooth to survive as a company? Is the point.

Digitization Accelerates with New Corona Countermeasures--ITR Impact Survey on Corporate IT Trends

On May 12, ITR (ITR) announced the results of the "Impact Survey on Corporate IT Trends of Corona-Stricken". Infection countermeasures for the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) will be a factor in accelerating the execution of IT strategies, and the most urgent countermeasures are "introduction of telework system", and the future focus will be on digitization of documents. Turned out to be in the expansion of.

This is a summary of the analysis results of a survey of how the IT trends of domestic companies have changed in response to the spread of the new coronavirus infection. Conducted from April 24-27, 2020 for persons in charge of IT strategy formulation and IT practice at domestic companies. We received 1370 valid responses.

According to the survey, corporate IT strategies "I think it will accelerate significantly" regarding the impact of refraining from economic activities following the government's announcement of a state of emergency on April 7 on the execution of its own IT strategy (progress of digitization). 27%, "I think it will accelerate a little" was 44%, and 71% in total answered that it would be a factor for acceleration.

On the other hand, the ratio of expected deceleration (the total of "I think it will slow down a lot" and "I think it will slow down a little") was less than 10%. "The global pandemic reaffirms the importance of IT in corporate activities," ITR analyzes.

Impact of refraining from activities associated with the spread of coronavirus infection on the execution of the company's IT strategy (Source: ITR)

In addition, as an urgent measure implemented in response to the spread of the new coronavirus infection, most companies worked on the "introduction of the telework system", and 37% answered that the introduction was completed as an emergency measure. This was followed by "new / additional introduction of remote access environment" and "new / additional introduction of communication tools", and it seems that the development of IT infrastructure to support telework of employees was carried out in advance.

Regarding future plans, many companies cited "additional purchase / supply of PCs and mobile devices" and "strengthening network infrastructure" in the short term within 3 months, and medium- to long-term plans that are 3 months or more ahead. Items related to the digitization of documents such as "Expansion of the scope of digitization of internal documents (application forms, etc.)" and "Expansion of the scope of digitization of external transaction documents (contracts, etc.)" ranked high.

ITR predicts that by working on telework, inefficient work related to document handling will be visualized, and the number of companies working on countermeasures will increase.

Implementation status of IT measures associated with the spread of new coronavirus infection (Source: ITR)

In addition, the following survey results were also obtained in this survey.

Changing the importance of IT strategy themes--One-third of companies chose "employee work style reform" as a higher priority theme
Status of efforts on digital transformation (DX) themes--The area of ​​"employee empowerment" such as "advanced collaboration / communication" and "transformation of work style" is rising.
Changes in IT budget and IT project management--40% of companies implement both "postponement of project suspension" and "acquisition of special budget"
Products and services targeted for new introductions and additional investments--40% of companies chose "web conferencing / webinar"
Organizational response status and self-evaluation of IT departments--As for the evaluations (self-evaluations) from the management / user departments, more than 70% of companies said that "continuous operation of existing systems" was "good" and "somewhat good". Answered
In response to the results of this survey, Shinya Mizuno, a senior analyst at ITR, said, "The telework environment of companies is rapidly improving due to measures against the new coronavirus infection. The next three months are so urgent. We obtained the result that many companies maintain networks and security such as remote environments in a sustainable state, which we have been promoting in the above. In the medium to long term, the computerization of internal and external document procedures that became apparent in the work in the telework environment. In addition, it is expected that the entire society will shift to new lifestyles and business forms, and the online sales and sales activities and the development of new online services to support them will progress at once. In order to keep up with the changes in this society, the IT department sees this situation as an opportunity for change without being bound by the existing paradigm, and takes the lead in reviewing the IT strategy and developing human resources to realize it. It is important to hit and respond. "