Belonging in the Age of COVID-19
Intensified by the global pandemic, a sense of belonging has become a pressing organizational priority. Work routines have been upended for leaders and employees alike – office shutdowns, remote work, extended work hours, and furloughs and layoffs. Given the prolonged nature of the disruption, what does it mean to “belong at work” during a sustained […]
Read MoreE-commerce’s New Normal: Designing for an Uncertain Future (First of a Multipart Series)
The COVID-19 pandemic has thrust our lives into uncertainty. The unemployment rate remains high, people struggle to plan their days and their lives due to unclear and ever-changing guidelines for returning to work and school, and consumers worry about both their finances and the health and well-being of their families and communities. COVID-19 has resulted […]
Read MoreDon’t Give Up On the Main Street Lending Program Just Yet
By all accounts, the Federal Reserve’s Main Street Lending Program for small and medium-size businesses (SMB) has not been the type of rescue program many anticipated. Launched in April, the program did not make its first loan until July. The Main Street program has suffered from comparison with the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), even though […]
Read MoreFor Banks, Supporting Small Businesses in the Pandemic Goes Well Beyond Lending
The impact of the pandemic on small businesses has spurred changes in banks’ lending practices – but the upheaval hasn’t stopped there. While the shifts underway in functions such as trade finance and mortgages are typically more nuanced, they speak to how important small- and medium-sized businesses (SMB) are to banks – and how critical […]
Read MoreWhat the World Needs Now – and Even More During the Pandemic: Chunkers
Over the past two years, when I’ve asked business, digital and IT executives what critical skill or talent they most sorely lack, I’ve gotten an unexpected response: It’s what several called “chunkers.” Not only has the pandemic increased the need for chunkers; it also requires a different set of perspectives and skills from these individuals, […]
Read MoreNational Brands Are Driving Healthcare into New Settings for Care Delivery
Search “healthcare changed forever by COVID-19” online. Millions of results pop up, from a “forever changed” supply chain to a “forever changed” industry landscape due to mergers and acquisitions to “forever changed” care delivery via telehealth. Instead of giving COVID-19 premature credit for all these changes, though, we’d rather call it a catalyst that could […]
Read MoreAs COVID Spurs More Cloud Migration, Here’s How to Ensure Success
Amid COVID-19, many businesses have accelerated their use of the cloud. No longer are cost, flexibility and scale the sole drivers for cloud migration; equally important are systems availability and remote access for work-from-home employees. However, we still see organizations concerned about moving applications to the cloud, especially enterprise applications such as SAP, Pega and […]
Read MoreAs COVID Burns Down the Present, Tend to the Green Shoots
People are insatiable for a look at how we’ll live and work in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Doing so is easy: Remember some of the most normal things you did until about mid-March of this year and then consider those behaviors as radical. Commuting to the office, getting your kid ready for their […]
Read MoreCustomer Identity and Access Management in the Age of COVID-19
For more than 20 years, I’ve helped clients implement identity and access management (IAM) systems that ensure only the right users have the right access to the right applications and data. Over that time, I’ve also seen organizations struggle to create online user experiences that make it easy for consumers to get information, solve problems […]
Read MoreDon’t Let IT Backlogs Stymie Digital Change Amid a Crisis
A global crisis reorders priorities everywhere. Take the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which is increasing demand for valuable resources across the board, including IT. The need for digital capabilities, already constrained pre-COVID, is (with minimal notice) causing a rapid expansion in IT backlogs, which threatens business continuity. For example, take the growing backlog of legacy application […]
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