As happened in Europe, Brazilian companies cut their IT budgets in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its ramifications, and redirected the rest to face the challenges that remote working policies have imposed on them.
The response to the pandemic has caused a major shake-up in where retail IT budgets are deployed, with remote working projects, for example, much easier to justify than in the past.
After months of improvisation, the companies, through their top managers, recognize that need real budgets for 2021 combining technological resources with strategy.
But they also know that the usual budgeting process, with its traditional inputs and standard approaches, is no longer adequate for this difficult task.
The reaction to the coronavirus lockdown was a learning curve and helped the retail segment understand how technology budgets should reflect the challenges of 2021
The Covid-19 experience has proven that there is so much untapped potential in the virtual workspace that retail companies need to explore and use to create a more attractive and flexible workplace, while maintaining the inspiration, energy and social connection that comes with belonging to a physical team and remote environment.
Recent figures from a report by KPMG, a multinational auditing and consulting firm, reveal that if companies want to continue to attract the best employees, they need to have policies that allow them to work from home permanently or part-time.
It found that workers aged between 31 and 45 want to work more flexibly (53%) and workers under 30 are the most interested in working from home permanently (28%).
Meanwhile, in line with the reduced number of people on site, 28% of the organizations questioned said they are increasing spending on automation to reduce dependence on people - a trend that Gartner calls "hyper automation", the result of the aggressive adoption of robotic process automation (RPA) and Artificial Intelligence.
The pandemic has also made it easier for IT leaders to justify the 2021 security budget. Regulations and reputation defense are factors that ensure that cyber security is always a prioritywith expenses that are easy to justify.
But add the fact that many people are working remotely and the justification for spending more on security becomes even easier.
Adapting to survive
Against this backdrop of major transformations, stores have also taken on another role during the pandemic - as smaller, local supply centers. They quickly set up local distribution services. They are not sophisticated companies and have basically set up a delivery service because they were forced to.
Depending on the size of the business, this has been done through something as simple as informing customers, via social networks or other social media, that they can make deliveries while setting up something more sophisticated, such as a website.
In fact, the coronavirus pandemic has forced a decisive situation for many retailers, in many cases forcing them to adapt or die.
Although there was already a shift towards the relevance of physical stores as experiential spaces and customers demanding greater personalization and flexible purchasing options, blockchain accelerated these changes in customer behavior, the need to adopt technology to deal with them and adapting their budgets to cope with this transformation.
The direction the retail sector takes will be determined, in part, by how the pandemic develops, customer behavior and its own adaptability.
Whether the future of retail seems clear or not, what is easy to understand is that technology will be an important factor in retailers being able to survive the pandemic. Retailers must watch their customers carefully and react to their changes - however small - to stay afloat in a post-Covid world.
Conversys can help your company reduce the risks and impacts of this global crisis. Contact our experts now and find out about Aruba Networks' security, network management and connectivity solutions. We are on hand to help you overcome this challenge.
About Conversys
Conversys IT Solutions is a provider of Information and Communication Technology services and solutions operating throughout Brazil.
With a highly qualified technical and commercial team and a network of partners that includes the main global technology manufacturers, Conversys IT Solutions is able to deliver customized IT and Telecom Infrastructure solutions to clients.
We invest in our employees and partners and strive for a long-lasting relationship with our clients, because we believe that this is how we gain the skills and knowledge we need to innovate and generate value for the businesses in which we operate.
