Research released by Couchbase Inc. last year found that over 80% of enterprises across the U.S. and three other major countries had digital transformation projects fail, experience delay, or get scaled back.

In the aftermath of the global pandemic, a reversal of that percentage is no longer mere wishful thinking to gain an edge on competitors. It has become a necessity.

“Digital transformation five months ago was about obtaining competitive advantage,” said Jesus Mantas (pictured), senior managing partner of strategy and innovation at IBM Corp. “Digital transformation today in many industries is about survival.”

Mantas spoke with Dave Vellante, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. They discussed the impact of COVID-19 on behavioral change, disruption to Fortune 500 companies caused by failure to digitally transform, and dependence on automated tools to analyze global data on a much wider scale. (* Disclosure below.)

Reliance on tech

What has prevented businesses from moving faster in digital transformation? It’s not the technology, according to Mantas. The cause is more related to behavioral change, something that has been greatly accelerated by events of the past several months.

“Behavioral change and skills of employees, behavior change of patients, behavioral change of clients has been the human aspect of this transformation,” Mantas noted. “Anything you do in your daily life you can’t barely do unless you are using a cellphone, tablet or computer. We’ve probably made more progress in the last two months on changing and developing this skill and habit of being digital than we have done in the last five years combined.”

The need for businesses to digitally transform takes on more urgency when turnover among Fortune 500 firms is considered as well. Fewer than 12% of Fortune 500 firms on the list in 1955 were still there in 2017.

“If you look at how many of the Fortune companies have disappeared in the last 10 years, that pace of change is not going to slow down. It’s actually going to accelerate,” Mantas said. “It puts a premium on companies and individuals to really make sure they accelerate their relevance in a more digital world versus just playing defense.”

Lesson in exponential modeling

One of the unmistakable hallmarks of the global crisis has been an explosion of data. Countless tracking mechanisms, such as one resource developed by IBM and The Weather Channel to provide highly localized information, have sprung up practically overnight to keep the world better informed on the virus spread and its impact on local communities.

A greater appreciation for more granular data analysis could lead to an increase in adoption of artificial-intelligence tools, according to Mantas.

“COVID-19 has given a universal lesson on exponentials to everybody,” said Mantas, who noted that a lack of vital medical equipment has been acute in some parts of the world. “Your supply chain needs to be managed hyper-locally. What matters is dealing with data at a granular level and applying algorithms to make local decisions. That is what AI does best.”

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have exceeded 3.5 million globally, with approximately one-third of those occurring in the U.S., based on recent data provided by John Hopkins University.

“It is clearly a tragedy,” Mantas said. “We can’t change the context, but we cannot let the context define who we are. Let’s use this time to get better prepared for the next crisis.”

Here’s an abbreviated clip of the full interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the IBM Think Digital Event Experience. Neither IBM, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE