Rather than temporarily pull back from digital transformation, this may be an ideal time to hit the gas even harder.

Before a global coronavirus outbreak severely disrupted the world’s economy, the enterprise world was steaming at full speed to adopt digital transformation strategies. While the current economic uncertainly may seem like a good time to pause, the opportunity to learn from uncertainty and prepare for the unforeseen can offer an important advantage.

“I would push in on digital transformation at this time because you’re not going to know what’s going to break until you get into these situations,” said Rob Strechay, principal at Smuget. “There’s some startups that have really pushed in on doing some things in a new way from the traditional financial services companies, and they found out that stuff was breaking. I would almost double down on it; this is going to be the way that helps smooth things out.”

Strechay spoke with Stu Miniman, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, at theCUBE’s studio in Boston, Massachusetts. They discussed strategies for tech firms to establish value in tumultuous times and the future for emerging new technologies.

Added services

For a number of tech firms, part of the messaging should also involve staying visible and demonstrating a willingness to go the extra mile for customers that may have temporarily closed site facilities, according to Strechay.

“For the small-to-medium-sized companies I’ve been watching in tech and in talking to some of their teams, they’re putting out information, saying: ‘Hey, we’re still up,’” Strechay noted. “They’re reassuring their customers that they can get the kit out to them. At the same time, they’re saying: ‘Hey, what we’re seeing from our customers is once we do ship it, you don’t have somebody on site to take it in, so we can offer services to help you with that.’”

Once the economic uncertainty subsides and the coronavirus is under control, Strechay believes that the stage is set for the emergence of new technology that will build on top of existing solutions.

“There’s a lot of very interesting things going on with artificial intelligence,” Strechay said. “People are starting to get past the hype. There’s going to be some great new tech coming out that will help enable these types of digital transformations.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations.

Photo: SiliconANGLE