How teleworking accelerated digitalization and influenced the SaaS rush
Like many companies, Taleez has been impacted by the year 2020. As a very small company specializing in recruitment management, our business activities had previously enjoyed stable growth. In 2020, there was first a slowdown in March, then an acceleration in September, which has been uninterrupted ever since.
The slowdown made sense: the abrupt slowdown in the country's economic activity pushed recruitment to the back of the agenda and halted many HR projects in companies. By contrast, the acceleration in September came as a (pleasant) surprise. Since then, there has been a certain sense of urgency among our prospects: they have more mature projects and want to put them into practice quickly.
Recruitment is certainly picking up. Yes, we have concentrated our efforts on educating, developing the tool, the brand and our reputation in the meantime. But is that the only reason?
My ego would scream yes, but my reason sees things differently.
With the pandemic, the lockdowns and the introduction of forced telecommuting when the job allowed it, the digitization of working methods has gone from being a strategic issue to one of survival. And in the midst of all this, SaaS software (I'll come back to this term a little further down), like Taleez, has come up with the right answers to what have become burning imperatives.
In this article, I take a look back at a trend that companies wishing to remain competitive should not ignore.
In 2020, teleworking accelerated digital transformation
Since the end of the 1990s in France, companies have ventured into digitalization at their own pace, like strolling down a long, quiet river.
Then, in March 2020, the lock-in was pronounced and most employees could no longer go to the office; telecommuting then emerged as THE solution for maintaining business. At that point, digitization becomes a rafting descent down raging rapids. There's no question of paddling with the current: to survive, you have to keep up.
So we find equipment for everyone, then start installing essential tools to communicate and keep in touch. Working from home, with no one to see, team cohesion becomes a priority. It's no coincidence that the number of Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet users exploded during the first lockdown.
The strategy at the time was to prioritize what activity could still be maintained.
Subsequently, this course of action evolved. Companies are encouraged to continue telecommuting until the pandemic is under control. And then we start to notice that those who were already interested in telecommuting, and who had a mature digital strategy, are doing better overall than those who had to take it up in a hurry.
I'd say this is where it all changes: from summer 2020 onwards , demand picks up again from online software publishers (and not just those that enable better communication). After all, since telecommuting is here to stay, and the companies that succeed are those that place digitalization at the heart of their strategy, we might as well do as they do and set up a sustainable operation!
With a year's hindsight, it's fair to say that forced telecommuting, triggered by the COVID-19 crisis, has accelerated the digital transformation of French companies.
Teleworking and digitalization: what's at stake in 2020-2021?
Digital transformation is often reduced to the adoption of digital work tools, but it is in fact a global reflection on how technological evolutions :
- contribute to the transformation of work ;
- influence the company's offering;
- make customer relations more fluid.
In this article, I'm only interested in the digitization of working methods linked to the massive development of telecommuting, but all these subjects are quite interrelated. Digitization can even be motivated by other objectives, such as the need to evolve project management, for example.
In terms of working methods, digitization no longer boils down to using an office suite and an e-mail address, as was long thought to be the case (which then amounted to transposing our "paper" practices onto IT tools).
Today, it's all about taking a step back from the way things currently work and its shortcomings, both for business productivity and for the employee experience, then asking ourselves how digital can help us do better.
The digital transformation required to introduce telecommuting involves looking at the following issues in particular (depending on your company or business, you may identify others):
- human: creating/keeping a link between employees, fostering cohesion, opening up spaces for exchange, etc. ;
- managerial: having a productive team, working together, enabling everyone to find their place, supporting changes in the business, building trust, etc. ;
- operational: providing everyone with the right working tools, ensuring data accessibility, implementing 100% digitized and fluid processes, etc.
For each of these challenges, SaaS tools have an answer to offer, and seem to have convinced companies.
Booming SaaS tools: the answer to teleworking?
SAAS tools (for software as a service) are tools that can be used online. They are not installed on your computer; you access them via the Internet and have a secure account (like your inbox, for example). Specialized SaaS tools can be found for a wide range of activities: HR management, payroll, project management, communications, customer support, sales management, recruitment management, etc.
Many companies in the sector have expressed their views on the subject: demand rose sharply during or after the initial containment. I don't want to reduce digitalization to SaaS tools, but in my opinion, it's no coincidence that this trend coincides with the introduction and extension of forced teleworking.
By virtue of the fact that they are hosted online, they already address a problem that comes directly to mind when we talk about telecommuting: How can I access my tools from home if I can't connect to the company's secure network?
A SaaS tool can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection. For this reason, all stored data is centralized and easily accessible. However, the security and confidentiality of this data is a matter for the company's responsibility and credibility, and is therefore taken very seriously. This is, of course, a valid question, and you should not hesitate to ask your technical department to find out if you have any concerns.
As far as usage is concerned, SaaS tools have exploited the possibilities offered by the Net, and there's more to come:
- Many of them are collaborative, enabling you to work on the same data in real time . Like, for example, when several people are working on the same Google Doc file.
- The culture of user experience (UX) is central to this sector, which means that the market is full of easy-to-use tools designed with the user in mind.
- Updates are frequent, bugs are quickly corrected, and user needs are largely taken into account.
- Customer support is often very accessible, and it's easy to find someone to answer your questions.
- They offer more flexible subscriptions than traditional software, and are often less expensive.
In my opinion, all these features are a direct response to the challenges of telecommuting, and make online tools a very interesting response to the development of such a strategy.
Even if it may still be complicated to envisage 100% remote working for everyone over the long term, I think it's an organization that shouldn't be overlooked if you want to remain competitive in the recruitment market. Especially since the majority of French people have had access to telecommuting. Here's why:
- The current health situation and ecological concerns are leading more and more people to question their urban lifestyle. Coworking spaces are springing up in rural areas, and new generations will soon be finding jobs that give them access to the best of both worlds.
- And while many will want to stay in the city, the "9-5 office day" model is increasingly being called into question, in favor of a more flexible organization of work (time and place of exercise). In fact, according to an Avaya survey, 49% of French people are in favor of a hybrid working model.
More than just a health-related necessity, telecommuting responds to a real social aspiration, and digitalization is going to become essential for companies. Especially if they wish to recruit talent whose daily activity could take place, or already does, in front of a computer. Not to mention that your new talents have grown up with computers. Chances are, they'll be more attracted to companies that are interested in the possibilities offered by new technologies, than to those that are still dragging their feet.
To put it simply: for me, the company of the future is digital.
Article translated from French