Impact of the COVID-19 crisis on SME digitization

An important prerequisite for companies to be successful nationally and internationally is rule-based, free trade of values. In 2020, however, this has fundamentally changed – at least temporarily. Corona lockdowns restricted both individual employees and companies as a whole, and led to new, different ways of thinking in the SME sector. For SMEs, the most important thing was to secure innovation and competitiveness, to shape digital transformation and cover the demand for skilled workers in their own company.

The fact that digital transformation is a key to ensuring competitiveness in the long run and being able to do business in a successful way despite the corona pandemic was and is known to many. However, digitization projects have now been accelerated by COVID-19 in an unexpected way. The question is how the current developments affect the SME sector?

The keywords ‘flexibility’ and ‘individuality’ are in focus. Many SME companies have made adjustments to their product or service offering as a result of the pandemic and they have shifted their business activities to a virtual, non-contact world. To bring about this transformation, flexibility was both a necessity and a given, due to shorter information paths. Additionally, individual customer requirements have gained in significance.

Next to short-term measures, long-term thinking towards a digital corporate strategy is equally important. This naturally looks different depending on the goal pursued by each SME, but this rethinking offers the opportunity to create a future-proof business model that further promotes the company’s previous corporate development, evolving from a product provider to a solution provider. In addition, SMEs see high potential and importance in the digitization of administrative work. One of the big future challenges of determining individual customer needs can be facilitated by standardising administrative processes and workflows in a digital way.

However, COVID-19 has not only changed working within the company itself, but has also made mobile working, in the form of home office, an important pillar. The basis for mobile work is digital technologies that can be used to digitise work processes. The digital infrastructure as a result of the ongoing digital transformation allows employees to access their data from anywhere. Of course, concerns about digitization, such as lack of IT competence, data protection and data security or high costs, are justified and must be included in the planning, but must not be an obstacle. Only the clear formulation of goals makes digitization a reality.

One goal can be the digital workforce management solution offered by ISGUS. It simplifies and automates almost all standard processes from T&A and access management to visitor management. This solution additionally supports you in staff scheduling and sustainably improves the collection of production data. Employees and supervisors can thus participate in time management, record their working hours and communicate directly with the ISGUS solution via streamlined workflows, at any time and from anywhere.

With ZEUS® Workforce Management, you always have the freedom to use the ISGUS solution on premise in your own IT environment or as Software as a Service in the ISGUS Cloud. Our own ISO/IEC 27001 certified data centre ensures maximum availability and reliably protects your personnel data.

In addition, mobile time management is becoming more and more important for the modern working world. Our ZEUS® mobile app makes your workforce management system accessible on smartphones and tablets, and allows you to increase your flexibility to a great extent. Contact us now and let us advise you individually, because digitization is definitely not a short-term trend, but an indispensable driver for innovation that contributes to improving profitability and long-term corporate growth.