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How Canadian Businesses Responded to COVID-19
COVID-19 has tested every business on their ability to sustain, adapt, and scale operations. In a recent research study, IDC ― sponsored by Salesforce ― interviewed over 300 Canadian businesses to understand how they are meeting rapidly evolving customer expectations and preparing for what’s next.
The surveyed companies span across industries including manufacturing, retail, professional services, high-tech, and financial services, with sizes ranging from small to enterprise.
COVID-19 response scale
304 respondents across 3 response profiles
Walkers
Those with an ad-hoc approach to digital transformation
Joggers
Those with a more tactical approach to digital transformation
Sprinters
Those with a strategic approach to digital transformation
Insight from analysis of responses
10 key findings across 5 themes
Impact on key metrics
01. Negative impact on key metrics
Despite overall negative impact on key business metrics, some industries such as high-tech and telecom experienced a rise in demand.
Sprinters were able to sustain employees, while some scaled business locations and saw an increase in revenue.
Overall, Canadian businesses are optimistic about an improvement to key metrics within two years (see Looking Forward).
Report a decrease in
revenue
Report a decrease in
workforce
The digital imperative
Report acceleration of existing plans or investments into new technology solutions
02. Acceleration in technology adoption
To meet unprecedented demands and challenges, businesses across industries had to accelerate their digital transformation.
Industries more affected by work-from-home measures such as retail and manufacturing had to invest quicker in new solutions to sustain operations.
Sprinters were able to prioritize effectively, while walkers had to adapt abruptly as they sped up existing technology adoption plans.
We had digital transformation plans in place pre-COVID-19, but now rather than having long time horizons in place it's become about what we need to accomplish in the next 30-45 days and what are the needed tactics to move forward. We've made significant changes and implemented them in a time horizon that previously would have been not even considered.
Michael Marks
AVP Digital Transformation
03. More agility among Sprinters to change or revamp processes
Working from home required organizations to reconsider how they engage with customers and their ability to empower employees to complete tasks. The majority of Canadian businesses across industries report the ability to adapt current processes to COVID-19 changes and other unforeseen events.
Sprinters and Joggers accelerated investments on processes related to employee interaction. Walkers accelerated investments on processes related to engaging with customers and supply chain.
report complete revamp or major change in processes across categories, from customer to employee engagement
Evolving expectations
04. Rise in investment of existing and new technologies
Sprinters focused more on new technologies to drive customer engagement and experience.
Walkers focused more on new technologies to enable employees to complete their work tasks.
Report significant investments into existing and new technologies involving how customers buy from them, how employees interact with each other and complete their work tasks.
Technology investment priority varied by industry
Manufacturing
45%
Retail
44%
High-tech/Telecom
53%
Professional Services
48%
Financial Services
64%
Others
57%
05. IT security and technology adaptability as top challenges
Report the top challenge is maintaining and expanding IT security
Report the top challenge is getting customers to adapt to new processes
What we heard
The whole shift from physical to online retailing is challenging.
Customer behavior and expectations are changing at a staggering pace now, so it’s difficult to deal with it.
We need to employ a new strategy for engaging our customers virtually.
Early in our transition phase our employees were not adapting well to the new setup.
Looking forward
06. Optimism about improving business metrics over the next two years
Despite the unprecedented challenges businesses had to face in such a short period of time, many expect their key metrics to increase or at least stay the same compared to pre-COVID-19 levels.
Most businesses think they will be more efficient to drive better profits.
Expect to see an increase in financial metrics over the next two years
High-tech/telecom businesses are especially confident in revenue increasing beyond pre-COVID-19 levels
Expect the way they engage with customers and prospects to look the same as pre-COVID-19
Expect the way their employees interact with each other to look the same as pre-COVID-19
07. Expectation of customer and employee interactions returning to previous norms in two years
Many businesses anticipate the return to “normal” interactions between employees and customers, as well as going back to pre-COVID-19 sales processes, while expecting internal processes such as remote work and changes to supply chains to look different in the future.
Sprinters expect their organizational processes to look much different than they did pre-COVID-19.
08. Greater focus on investing in technology and retraining employees
To sustain growth, businesses across industries are increasing investments on retraining and reskilling existing employees.
Signification technology investments are in cloud services (48%), cloud software solutions, data analytics (38%), and Customer Relationship Management (33%).
Sprinters report major investments across the categories to sustain growth.
Report investments in retraining or reskilling employees
Report investments in adding or improving technology
Major challenges in revamping and building new organizational processes
Evolving customer expectations
Adapting existing technology
Reskilling existing employees
Timely access to needed data
Return to work
09. Expectation of a hybrid work environment to evolve over the next two years
Before COVID-19, only 6% of the workforce worked remotely across Walker’s, Jogger’s, and Sprinter’s organizations.
While almost half of the workforce is working remotely during COVID-19, the proportion remains significantly lower in retail and manufacturing.
Out of the current remote workforce, about half is expected to continue remote work two years from now.
Alison Mahoney
EVP Sales & Marketing
10. Purpose-built vs ad-hoc solutions for “Return to Work”
Businesses in retail and manufacturing prefer buying a specific solution rather than ad-hoc to manage the reopening process.
Overall, there are visible shifts in views about the“return to work” plans and solutions between now and two years from now.
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