Mr. Kirk Henry, Chief Executive Officer, iGovTT
May 13th, 2020
What do you see the business community focusing on coming out of the COVID-19 lockdown with regards to moving forward and what changes you do foresee being implemented with the ‘new business norm’?
iGovTT
Mr. Kirk Henry, Chief Executive Officer
The Covid-19 pandemic has wrought significant disruption on the societies across the world and in most instances, it has forced us to re-examine not only what we do but how we do what we do. The technologies that some leaders regarded as ‘nice to have’ or unnecessary to getting real work done, are fast becoming the norm and the accepted way of conducting business in these times.
Trinidad and Tobago is no exception and as the country moves forward the recognition of the need to utilize the appropriate technological tools to maintain productivity out of necessity is impacting on the decisions that leaders both in the public and private sector make. As we proceed further into this uncharted world of social distancing, there are some foundational technologies that I daresay all organizations must consider.
Enterprise Collaboration Technologies: must be the order of the day for all organizations. Until such time as the society fully reopens, the need to communicate effectively to internal and external stakeholders will be at a premium. These fairly simple technologies have been around for a while but were not in widespread use in Trinidad and Tobago and this was particularly so in government. The last two months have seen an explosion in the use of these technologies in the workplace, not only for interacting with employees but also heavily utilized for suppliers and customers. This is unlikely to change and represents a new normal. Here at iGovtt we have embraced this technology and have been effectively operating from a virtual space.
Online Case Management: this is a critical element of operations in an age of social distancing. Organizations locally must find ways to utilize the technology to present their services online and to allow for access and management of the resulting business activities. The days of F2F contact to seal the deal are past, making appropriate use of the right cloud technologies presents an opportunity for business to provide their services to their customers in a safer and, often-times, more cost-efficient manner. This approach to the delivery of goods and services apply equally to the private and public sector.
Electronic Payments Processing: this represents another important pillar in effectively operating during these pandemic times and the Caribbean region has the opportunity to improve its maturity in this area. The proliferation of payment networks and supporting technologies some may argue have not been readily migrated at the levels that are needed to support the true potential of the region. It is, however, quite clear, that locally a lot is happening, and we are seeing increasing interest and appetite for payment technologies, as well as emerging Fintech options. This will only intensify as customers of private and public sector organizations demand more of these services to be provided, as the days of the brick and mortar based model of customer engagement continues to decline.
