We are aware that the digital transformation allows us to act before extraordinary situations like the one we are living now with the Covid-19, more quickly. Just look at the teleworking capacity of many companies. However, not all sectors are synchronized and can cope with such a fast adaptation by reducing themselves to “do it’s own way”. Resilience to the crisis.
For such as Healthcare, Education, which have already achieved a digital presence to a greater or lesser degree, this two basic services are experiencing an acceleration in demand and therefore a greater need to deal with contingencies through digital resources. In the case of Telecommunications, a technologically consolidated sector, there are also contingencies in the current situation.
Some of the drivers of the demand for PaaS, SaaS, etc. are to be able to give continuity to the educational service or assistance to the patient.
We would like to briefly review the adaptations of these three sectors in the face of this exceptional situation.
Digital Platforms as Service (PaaS) as a leading role
In the search for alternatives, digital services are emerging and we are seeing it, social networks energizing the quarantine, market places at the top in terms of online sales, but how are basic services doing?
Education Sector
For the education sector, it will depend on each individual case. Many already have online resources, digital platforms for e-learning, which allow teachers and students to organize their work, while others do not.
Some primary schools already handled web applications such as Educamos for the control and centralization of information, with integrated teaching and management tools to share data, feedback or results and to observe the progress of students and teachers. In this case, the situation is almost “a piece of cake”.
Others use online didactic resources through web services, such as Genially for example, a platform that allows the generation of didactic contents, providing teachers with different templates and dynamic resources and this tool is even integrated with Google’s Classroom (educational platform ofbleended e-learning) .
In other words, the education sector was already using digital platforms, which make it more dynamic and save costs. But those who do not, will have had to resort in extremis to this services, with the consequences that this will involve, often involving loss of control and data as well as additional costs.
Healthcare
Regarding the health sector, telemedicine platforms are not new, but the Covid-19 crisis has shown the need to digitize this sector. This issue has already been presented to the Senate as a project to extend telemedicine as a complementary practice in both the public and private sectors.
eHealth and MHealth platforms(telemedicine through monitoring devices, mobiles) with very different objectives are now in the spotlight. These platforms range from care, medical management and/or diagnostics or assistance that allow to save waits, avoid unnecessary transfers, optimize resources and time, and reduce costs, among others.
This debate is not new and since 2016 there has been a discussion about its necessity, however, and due to the contingencies evidenced by the Covid-19 crisis, the time has come to legitimize and democratize the use of these platforms.
During these days we have already seen how some SaaS like OpenSalud or platforms like WeDoctor, made available to the Community of Madrid its emergency assistance service to replace the saturation of 112.
Entertainment:
And what about our beloved Netflix, a decisive platform in the daily management of the quarantine 😉
On the first Sunday of the quarantine, this platform experienced as a consequence of the premiere of a series in Spain, a huge traffic peak that made the platform collapse.
Spain is the first country in Europe in fiber optic infrastructure, which means that data transmission speed is faster. Netflix has already implemented a momentary solution offering during the period “temporarily” only standard definition (SD) transmission services instead of HD.
So, if a platform as important as Netflix experiences crashes when supporting an increase of services due to a traffic peak, or if the education sector is digitizing at a fast rate or the health sector shows its delay in management, are we prepared to optimally manage the new digital services in these 3 sectors after this crisis?
Ad-hoc reflections:
There is a change of business paradigm and it is becoming evident with the limits of social contact, operational, economic …
We knew that the time would come to incorporate uses and technologies or expand them, but for the moment it will be enough to meet the current needs of educational support, health relief through telecare or temporary solutions in terms of traffic.
Yet this is the beginning of a new economy that is more digital than ever. We cannot be satisfied by using standard online digital resources over and over again, nor can we give regular treatment to people in different future situations, even not being prepared to assume large traffic peaks, we have to go further… We see how technological deficiencies have forced us to face unnecessary costs. Waiting for a new contingency situation to deal with a new, more optimal management will never be the solution, and we refer to the tests.
To do this we need to get it right now, and we believe it is important that in the face of a more digital ecosystem than ever before, we take into account certain essential fundamentals to ensure operation, scalability and cost-effectiveness at l/p:
The customer’s identity data is the most valuable asset. The user interacts with the applications and services of the environment and that user should have a unique identity that at the time of enjoying the service the brand is able to know its journey to generate knowledge that bases its subsequent strategies of content, product and marketing.
Compliance with regulations such as the GDPR is not limited only to the customer’s consent. Consent options need to be systematically enforced across a wide range of potential users and applications.
Unifying digital assets, whether you are an educational institution or a clinic and have websites, apps, web services etc should be unified, to facilitate consistent and multi-channel customization which is the key to boosting revenue and user-brand loyalty. To do this, identification is critical. Once customers are connected, their applications need access to a single view of their profiles to enable consistent experiences across channels.
Be able to cope with peaks in demand and scalability in terms of users To have a customer datalake with an infrastructure capable of supporting demand peaks.
A long term growth in a company will occur through technological development and through the processing of user data. Therefore, any company with a digital or physical environment, which already uses apps, platforms, etc., that sees its structural GAPs solved through technological solutions,has an opportunity to lay the foundations for its long-term growth.
María Parra Mateos
Assistant Growth at Genetsis Solutions