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In the post-Covid world, organizations will have to revise their business models: Part 2

In the post-financial crisis of 2008, institutions that quickly changed their business models faster to adapt to the situation found their earnings rise 10%, while those that simply sought to return operations identical to pre-crisis felt a 15% retraction in addition to extensive processes reduction of employees. This adaptation is a master class example of the reason why you should adapt your business model to fit the times. The same could be said today.

In the pre-COVID world, remote work accounted for 16% of the workforce. It was generally seen as a type of flexibilization of companies so that employees have more time with their families, usually closer to weekends. Now in the throes of a pandemic, remote work suddenly jumped to 78%. To manage this sudden change, IT and crisis management teams simply extended user access with the main goal of maintaining operations without interruption and the discontinuity of business operations.

These movements are already being perceived in various sectors. Due to travel restrictions and consumers’ greater sensitivity to physical proximity, telemedicine ecosystems are rapidly expanding. In the US, the Federal Communications Commission is investing $200 million to increase the connectivity capabilities between patients and virtual health-care providers. Hundreds of doctors are looking to join these platforms to or maintain their current patients due to the drastic restriction of users to visit hospitals for fear of contracting COVID.

However, this poses cybersecurity risks by granting access in one fell swoop.

To balance the scales of mass access, identity governance needs to play a bigger and bigger role to free IT directors from the burden of routine tasks such as access approvals and data compliance and allowing them to focus on higher value security and business threats.

To the extent, however, that the generating factor of this crisis does not have a short-term solution and this model of remote work is consolidated as the new format of conducting business and professional interactions, additional concerns must be addressed.

Obviously, hacker groups increased their aggressive actions (26% increase in malware attacks and over 1.2 million new domains created using the word COVID-19, of those more than 86,600 were classified as risky or malicious) and companies face an unprecedented challenge in the midst of their digital transformation processes. That is, how to maintain operations in the most efficient way possible without compromising the integrity of all types of data and access to the most important applications (intangible assets) for the right users?

This is one example of change and increased complexity in IT systems that would either slow workers down or lead to significant security compromises. In this ever-changing world, it is important to maintain a robust security approach to all employees. Therefore, a more intelligent approach to identity would ensure that businesses can continue matching the need for speed with flexibility and agility that is a real match to any business eventuality.

Additionally, the post-COVID world will accelerate many of the trends already underway (e.g. cloud adoption, increased digitalization) where the main concept will be the speed, scale and efficiency of automated processes in interactions. After the drastic disruption we are facing, it is unlikely the business models will come back as they were in the pre-COVID world just like in the post ’08 recession. For the majority of the companies the only option to survive is to accelerate their digital transformation process with a strong identity strategy as the foundation of their business.


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