Overnight, COVID has changed the way businesses across every industry do business, challenging companies large and small and everything in between to reassess their operations and path forward. But strategies that worked before may not work as well today or in the future. In the current climate, businesses across all industries are looking to technology to innovate, improve operational workflows, and ensure superior customer experiences.
As we look to the future, it’s important to remember the lessons from the recent past that can help guide us. In 2008, we witnessed the beginning of the Great Recession, sparked by the global financial crisis. Global GDP growth fell by 4.3% from its peak in Q4 2007 to a low of -1.6% in Q2 2009. While the economic turmoil was certainly a global crisis, there were positives that came out of it. Businesses had to find new, less expensive ways to manage day-to-day operations, and one result was the birth of cloud computing.
The old way of doing IT was expensive, rigid, and slow. The economic crisis spurred demand for a new way to access computing power. This paved the way for companies like Rackspace, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and others to pioneer new, cheaper ways for businesses to digitize and scale their businesses quickly in the cloud.
Cloud computing unleashed unprecedented innovation, creating new business models and reinventing old ones. Millions of jobs were created and the unemployment rate quickly fell to less than 4%. Productivity gains soared as people learned to use technology to do more in less time. The stocks of leading cloud companies became more valuable, leading to record market highs.
Ultimately, cloud computing—and the cloud computing platforms we rely on today—brought the power of massive R&D investment to companies that couldn’t afford to do it alone. From the initial fear and economic devastation of 2008 came innovation and digitalization that changed the world and made companies more:
Productive: Reduce the cost of production, marketing, distribution, and sales Smart: Leverage the power of data to compete more skillfully Simple: Know customers better and simplify the customer experience Valuable: Grow more profitably by meeting more of their customers’ needs In 2020, the pandemic catalyzed a similar digital transformation. In a matter of months, companies accelerated their digital strategies to achieve what would have taken years before the pandemic. The insurance industry is no different: Brokers had to accelerate their digital adoption timelines in order to create new digital experiences for both employees and customers.
In order to become more agile and emerge as a stronger, more valuable company, brokers must invest in their digital future. Now is the time to take the necessary steps toward becoming digital brokers. By adapting to the new norm, brokers will be able to build stronger relationships with customers, provide employees with the tools they need to work smarter and more productively, and build more resilience and value into their businesses.