Companies look past coronavirus crisis towards change: IBM

A growing number of companies are moving out of crisis mode to investigate the opportunities for strategic change, IBM says.

IBM’s managing director in Australia and New Zealand, Katrina Troughton

A growing number of companies are moving out of crisis mode to investigate the opportunities for strategic and organisational change that can flow from the coronavirus pandemic, according to the local chief of global technology and consulting giant IBM.

Katrina Troughton, who in July last year became the first female managing director of IBM in Australia and New Zealand, said on Wednesday that more firms were beginning to see the opportunities presented by the shift to a new working environment.

“We do have this chance now to think about how you address the challenge in front of us, but how we use it to make things better,’’ Ms Troughton told a Trans-Tasman Business Circle webinar.

“We are starting to see what I think we will see happen more — the slightly bigger pivot. That is, if I am going to have to do this, is this still the best way to do it. Can I adjust things and do them better? To change the business process, to invest, to do something new. We are starting to see clients do that.”

IBM advises some of the region’s biggest companies including those that have been in deep crisis, such as Qantas and Air New Zealand, as well as a range of government departments. Many of its clients are classed as being “essential services”.

“For almost every client and business, the initial part was how do I keep my business going in this environment. That is exceptionally difficult for some of our clients. Then (the conversation changed to) how do I change the way I do business,’’ Ms Troughton said.

She said the crisis had highlighted “how vitally important the role of our managers are in being the communication point and ongoing touch point to employees”.

Ms Troughton said clients with big customer service operations and call centres were now rethinking their response to the pandemic. “We are seeing a lot of opportunities and discussion with clients,” she said.

“Is this a way to rethink our processes to help our people become more productive?”

Many were being more questioning about where to employ their best people and asking “how can we accelerate and leverage this in a different way?”

She said cybersecurity had become a key focus area as part of employing new skills for the digital work environment. Hackers and cyber scammers have used the coronavirus pandemic to send fraudulent email and WhatsApp messages allowing them to launch phishing attacks.

Video-conferencing giant Zoom last week hired a former Facebook security chief as an adviser on safety and privacy concerns to quell the global backlash against its perceived security flaws, which has seen some large companies stop using its services.

“One of the challenges of doing more digital is we will see more people being challenged by cyber attacks,’’ Ms Troughton said. She said the first and most basic risk-mitigation strategy was reviewing the actual equipment firms were running to ensure it was up to date. But she said there had been a general increase in awareness about employee behaviour and cyber risks, even before the onset of the pandemic.

“The biggest risk is in smaller businesses,’’ she said, noting they did not have the resources of big firms to invest in the expertise required. She said IBM had been working with its industry rivals such as Salesforce and Microsoft on cybersecurity issues.

“Where the industry can come together is really key,’’ she said.

Before her appointment last year Ms Troughton spent 28 years at IBM in local, regional and global positions, including IBM NZ managing director, global vice-president for IBM’s Smarter Workforce Solutions and, most recently, vice-president for enterprise and commercial sales for Asia-Pacific (APAC).