This is #3 in a series of articles about the ways digital innovation can help businesses remain resilient in the face of economic disruption. 

Despite nail-biting economic data, businesses are, by and large, refusing to cut back on investments in digitization transformation. In fact, nearly half are doubling down. No doubt, lessons from the COVID recession, which confirmed the power of digital innovation to combat economic disruption, is informing their strategy.  

The challenges of the current economy—inflation, talent shortages, disrupted supply chains— may be different, but the principal remains the same. Strategic investment in digitization can provide a powerful antidote to all kinds of business disruption. 

“If there’s anything we’ve learned in the last two years, it’s the importance of adaptability,” argues the US Chamber of Commerce. “Change is inevitable, so the ability to pivot and be flexible is key to surviving any recession.” 

Previously, we looked at the ways digital self-service can help recession-proof your business achieve these goals. Now let’s consider ways to optimize and automate internal business processes. 

Increasing pressure—and greater opportunity—to optimize

We admit it. The value of business process automation and optimization isn’t exactly breaking news. Humans have been doing it since at least the invention of fire. And it remains a challenge that business leaders tackle on a daily basis. 

However, in the digital age, they do face an unprecedented set of interlocking challenges and opportunities:

• Digital challenge #1—High expectations: Customers, employees, and suppliers all expect the kinds of frictionless transactions that Amazon has brought to retail. And the risk of failing to meet these expectations keeps rising.
• Digital opportunity #1—Technological potential: From self-service apps to robotic process automation, modern technologies are now capable of automating and optimizing processes at a speed and scale that were unimaginable a few years ago.
• Digital challenge #2—Technological complexity: Ironically, it is often these various technologies that stand in the way of the next generation of cross-functional business process optimization. Integrating disparate data and systems has been so slow and expensive, leaving the heavy lifting to humans engaged in manual processes. 
• Digital opportunity #2—Codeless development: The advent of a new codeless approach to web development is making it dramatically easier to support sophisticated by integrating applications, databases, and workflows in a single pane of glass—without having to write a single line of code.

Modern use cases to consider

Regardless of the state of the economy, you’re probably still focused on a common set of business goals. Improving service. Increasing productivity. Eliminating waste. And enhancing your ability to pivot at the speed of the market. 

However, with a recession looming, you face more pressure to achieve these things—and have less room for delays and errors. 

Given the new set of opportunities for business process innovation that codeless development makes possible, it may be time to consider a new set of use cases. While in no way an exhaustive list, it may be exactly the right time to consider one (or more) of the following: 

• Sales. To make the most of existing opportunities, connect data sources to sales execution and insight tools to make sales more productive at a time when it is harder to secure new business. 
• Finance. Accelerate time-to-insight by standardizing data governance processes and controls and automating reporting. 
• HR. Attract and retain scarce talent by creating unified, on-brand employee journeys that speed onboarding, eContracting, provisioning, and more.
• Supply chain. To avoid bottlenecks and minimize the effect of shortages, create self-service hubs and web-based applications that support eContracts and more seamless contracts with suppliers and partners. 
• Support. Streamline support for employees and customers through self-service portals to initiate requests and digitized case management for internal tracking. 

+ Read our guide to recession-proofing your business. 

This is #2 in a series of articles about the ways digital innovation can help businesses remain resilient in the face of economic disruption. 

Inflation. Talent shortages. Disrupted supply chains. Today’s economy is full of uncertainties. Yet there is consensus among industry analysts, economists, and business leaders on one thing. In stormy economic waters, businesses should keep investing in digital innovation. 

Of course, that begs the question, what kinds of digital initiatives should they prioritize? 

Not surprisingly, customer experience is at the top of most people’s priority list, with more than half of surveyed companies saying they actually plan to increase CX technology spending an average of 17.3% in 2023, a recent study found. 

Why not start with customer self-service? 

When looking at opportunities to digitize CX, customer self-service is an obvious win-win—that sweet spot in which you can both drive revenue and lower costs. 

Back in the day, self-service was seen largely as a cost-cutting measure, one that often came at the cost of poorer customer experiences. However, that old calculus is no longer valid, as customers increasingly prefer the speed and flexibility that self-service enables. A Nuance study found that 75% of consumers believe self-service is a convenient way to address solve issues, with 67% actually preferring to interact with a self-service portal than with a live agent. 

And customer self-service also remains a powerful way to reduce expenses and increase productivity. Businesses can lower costs per transaction by as much as $11, according a Forrester Research/Oracle study. And at a time when call center wait times have tripled due to personnel shortages, those savings are only likely to increase. 

A Nuance study found that 75% of consumers believe self-service is a convenient way to address customer service issues, with 67% actually preferring to interact with a self-service portal than with a live agent. 

Can’t afford to digitize during a recession? Think again 

Traditionally, digitizing complex customer transactions has been risky and expensive, particularly for businesses operating in complex, heavily regulated industries. So, you may have written off certain self-service use cases, assuming they would take too long and cost too much. 

Fortunately, a new codeless approach to self-service significantly accelerates timelines. The list of potential use cases is endless, but here are just a few examples of what you can achieve—faster and at significantly lower cost than you may think: 

• P&C client onboarding for insurance. Make it easy for companies to onboard clients using entirely paperless workflows. Streamline customer information collection, and facilitate friction-free handoffs. Remove the need for repetitive questionnaires and other non-value generating administrative tasks. And verify data to avoid complicated, expensive manual back-and-forths. 
• Digital customer portal for banking. Deploy, manage, and maintain a digital front-end that empowers customers to complete tasks on their own, all supported by comprehensive dashboards for both customers and the business. Learn more about your customers by tracking digital transactions, and use that high-quality, granular data to create personalized service offerings.
• Case management for healthcare agencies. Allow agencies to easily and securely access the information they need. Digitize end-to-end referral solutions and universal intake processes. Enable clients, caregivers, and administrators to remotely engage with relevant services and case managers. 

Can you afford not to provide modern self-service? 

Given the speed with which you can now innovative, not providing modern self-service may just be the riskier proposition—especially in the wake of COVID. According to a recent McKinsey study, COVID accelerated digitization by three to four years.

And since self-service increasingly means good service, the risk to laggards is real. McKinsey also found that the total shareholder returns of CX leader was 3X that of laggards. A new study argues that leaders have extended that lead to 3.4X. 

Notably, the McKinsey study shows greater divergence between leaders and laggards during downturns. That only makes sense. When the economy is iffy, consumers and businesses invariably look for ways to cut back. And poor customer experiences provide the perfect excuse.

Want to learn more about digital innovation as an effective competitive strategy during turbulent economic times? 

Read how codeless development can help you recession-proof your business. 

This is #1 in a series of articles about the ways digital innovation can help businesses remain resilient in the face of economic disruption. 

Just when fears about COVID’s impact on the economy seemed to be dissipating, fear of a recession is top of mind again. The waters sure look choppy, but how long the downturn will last, how severe it will be, and even the definition of a recession are all up for debate.

However, there is consensus around one thing. Even in a time of shrinking budgets, digital innovation shouldn’t be on the chopping block. Everyone from industry analysts and economists to business leaders and government agencies widely agree on this—and for good reason. The right digitization initiatives can deliver both critical wins in the short term and make organizations more agile, insight-driven, and productive over the long term.

Here are just a few reasons why: 

• The elasticity and scalability of cloud-based solutions are a big advantage in the face of variable demand. 
• Digital customer experiences are increasingly effective—and increasingly essential—in securing customer loyalty. 
• Digitization enhances timely insight into actual demand, operations, costs, and quality, enabling businesses to maximize value even when demand is falling. 

The fresh lessons of Covid

It is rare to see so much agreement about strategy across the board. Then again, the COVID recession is still fresh in everyone’s mind. And as a 2022 IMF report found, businesses that kept digitally innovating in 2020 and 2021 achieved significant short-term value for their efforts versus laggards. Whether they wanted to or not, COVID forced organizations to digitize if they were going to serve customers and keep operations running. Enterprises that chose to stay committed to innovation saw immediate payoff. 

As a 2022 IMF report found, businesses that kept digitally innovating in 2020 and 2021 achieved significant short-term value for their efforts versus laggards.

“If there’s anything we’ve learned in the last two years, it’s the importance of adaptability,” argues the US Chamber of Commerce. “Change is inevitable, so the ability to pivot and be flexible is key to surviving any recession.” 

Now, as we emerge from the initial disruption of 2020, businesses are recognizing the longer-term benefits of their digital investments and have decided to double down on them, with 60% of executives calling digital transformation their most critical growth driver in 2022, a recent PwC survey found. 

The timeless lessons of history

When revenues fall and projected revenues fall even faster, businesses are forced to make tough decisions. And sometimes the hardest decision is to keep spending on initiatives that have not yet yielded results. However, freezing in place can actually be riskier, even if it doesn’t feel that way in the moment.

Recession after recession has shown that innovators not only fare better during downturns but prepare themselves to outpace growth when the economy rebounds, according to a Harvard Business Review (HBR) report. In their analysis of the major recessions since 1980, the top 10% percent of companies actually saw their earnings grow, both during the downturn and beyond. 

The ones who went out of business? The ones who “switched to survival mode, making deep cuts and reacting defensively,” according to the HBR. 

The word on the street

Business leaders may be bearish on the economy, but they are very much bullish on technological innovation. 

According to a new CNBC Technology Executive Council survey, more than three in four tech leaders expect their organizations to spend more on technology this year than they did in 2021. Not a single respondent said they planned to spend less. 

“In other cycles we’ve seen in the past, tech investment was one of the first casualties,” Nicola Morini Bianzino, Chief Technology Officer at professional services giant EY, told CNBC. “But after the pandemic, people realized that in a down, or even potentially recessionary, environment, we still need to keep our technology investments.”

But wait, isn’t digitization risky and expensive?

It can be, especially if you rely on traditional code or low-code. But it no longer has to be. A new codeless approach to development can speed development timelines by 3X or more, so that you can innovate at the speed of changing economic conditions. 

READ: 3 Ways to Recession-Proof Your Business Using Codeless

Remain resilient amid economic disruption with the power to bring sophisticated applications to market 3X faster—without having to write or manage lines of code.