“The need and demand for our tools have increased, and we are working on expanding our product portfolio”, said Asma Khan, Country Manager – Pakistan at Infobip, during an exclusive Q&A session with our Editor in Chief on the impact of COVID-19 on the overall economic landscape and digital service industry.
1. How is COVID-19 impacting operations? And how is your institution reacting?
As soon as the situation with coronavirus became a real global threat, we have activated a business continuity plan and a global crisis team, which continually monitors the development of the situation and timely informs all employees about crucial changes. We have not experienced any disruptions, and we are doing ‘business as usual’ performing all core business operations as expected. Also, we are intensively moving towards automation and digitalization in all business segments, both internally and externally, and putting extra effort in creating new products that will satisfy our customers’ needs in these challenging times.
What measures have you taken to ensure lower health risks for your employees and do you think working remotely can be a new norm?
As a responsible company which places the health and wellbeing of our employees and their families, partners, customers and local communities first, we decided to react immediately through numerous precaution measures and decisions, from January onwards. To prevent any possible viral outbreak in our offices worldwide we have immediately cancelled all international travels, planned events and educations. But the most important thing, we have activated a wholescale work-from-home model for most of our employees, especially in countries affected by a coronavirus. In some of our offices, our employees are working continuously from home for the fifteenth week in a row. Although they have worked from home before, we have now felt an overall increase in productivity.
On the other hand, lack of socialization and physical presence among the teams is evident. This was confirmed to us by our employees in the internal survey. Way of work has changed drastically, and I’m sure there will be much more flexibility when it comes to working hours and spaces.
2. How are you helping partners and customers cope with this crisis?
From the very beginning we ensured that information flowed proactively to our partners and customers around what to expect from us during this time of uncertainty. We knew that business continuity would be a concern for customers in particular and we made sure to proactively reach out to that this group with information relating to mitigation plans. All our customers are serviced by specialists that are set up to work remotely for as long as is required to provide unfaltering 24/7 follow the sun support. I’m pleased to say the team has not experienced any disruptions to this model, and we continue ‘business as usual’ performing all core business operations as expected.
We have kept in regular contact with partners and developer communities throughout too, to ensure they apply comparable mitigation practices with their teams, while still maintaining service levels. And of course, we hold ourselves equally as accountable to these cohorts.
3. Do you believe this crisis is offering opportunities for digital business such as yourself and what steps have been taken to make sure you are on top of everything?
We have found our role amid this crisis has been to be a trusted partner to our customers and many organisations, especially where critical communications have been central to the business model. In particular those businesses providing essential services such as health providers, financial services, news organisations and the on-demand sector. Many of those companies were already on a journey towards digital transformation, we have simply helped them speed up the process. Our focus as a business has always been and will continue to be enabling our clients to provide their customers with frictionless, connected experiences that make life easier.
4. Do you think future is completely digital or human touch will remain necessary for the masses?
It’s likely the answer will fall somewhere in between. Connected consumers have become used to instant gratification resulting from digital technology that allows them to be always-on. Customers these days demand quick interaction via the channel of their choice and businesses need to be set up to meet all these expectations. But no matter how strong the AI engine, a chatbot for example will not be able to understand 100pc of a human conversation which is why they are reserved currently for repetitive or simple tasks such as a function of a call center. Until a completely digital model alone can deliver the very best customer experience, it’s likely the way forward will be to strike the right balance between humans and machines.
5. How do you think this outbreak of COVID-19 will affect the industry? What will it look like?
The short answers is – no-body really knows for sure. It’s likely that both people and businesses will have learnt some valuable lessons during COVID-19 that they will take forward. Ranging from increased productivity of a workforce that has benefited from the work-life balance afforded to them by an enforced ‘work from home’ mandate, to new ‘click and collect’ business models that sprung up to bridge social distancing, there will be lots of positives to come from a tragic time. Many businesses may never go back to pre-COVID practices after reaping rewards of an accelerated digital transformation. There will also likely be some difficult times ahead too as some sectors recover from a total economic blackout particularly things like the travel and entertainment industries that cannot easily circumvent enforced and prolonged social distancing rules. Only time will tell.
