xMatters, a digital service availability platform that prevents IT issues from becoming business problems, today announced survey findings and an infographic that reveal how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the role of digital service operations practitioners and underscored the importance of incident response and management. Findings from the Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Transformation survey also highlight that despite IT professionals’ confidence in their ability to support today’s much greater dependence on digital services, there is a rise in application performance errors reported by more than half of consumers. However, while many companies and consumers have been quickly forced into a new digital reality, current efforts by IT organizations to build operational resiliency and adapt quickly will help position businesses for future success. For example, consumers anticipate continuing their increased use of digital services—from online banking and grocery shopping applications to video conferencing and collaboration tools—even after COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. The Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Transformation survey queried 300 consumers and 300 IT professionals in companies of at least 500 employees.
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“Current events have driven many organizations that hadn’t fully committed to making a digital transformation to change course and adapt in order to deliver accessible experiences for customers and employees,” said xMatters CEO Troy McAlpin. “Creating better consumer experiences and more productive workforces through digital services has moved from planning to production in the blink of an eye. Pursuing a digital transformation is now near mandatory—not only to be competitive, but to survive. It’s essential that enterprises build in the necessary operational resilience to support those services and survive in this new reality.”
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Pandemic Sharply Increases Digital Demand and Creates Burden
The Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Transformation survey makes clear that consumer migration to online services has now become a mass movement. Eighty percent of survey respondents reported their use of websites or mobile applications for tasks—such as banking, ordering takeout and grocery shopping—has increased during the stay at home period. Of these respondents, 68.5% say they use websites or mobile applications to complete the same tasks several times a day. What’s more, having become accustomed to such digital interactions, 82% say they will continue using digital services in the same capacity even after the current stay at home period expires. The evidence for the nearly complete adoption of digital services is even more pronounced when reviewing input from employees as well as consumers, most of whom are working in a distributed workforce model—the majority (90%) said they are taking advantage of digital services and applications, including video conferencing, workflow automation and collaboration tools.
With this increased reliance comes increased expectation. When asked what could dissuade them from continuing to use digital services, 52% said they would stop using a mobile application or website if it was slow to respond and 48% said security or privacy concerns would stop them.
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