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It’s not that industries were ignoring digital transformation before the pandemic. However, they were deploying it at their own pace. In many cases, it meant prioritizing specific processes and functions.

When lockdowns sent workers to their homes, organizations were forced to shape up quickly or shut down. The ones that chose the former had to plunge ahead, installing Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and others to facilitate communications and manage work at home.

Perhaps nothing better encapsulates the onrush of digital transformation activities during the pandemic than what happened at Zoom during the episode.

At the end of December 2019, the maximum number of daily meeting participants on its platforms, both free and paid, stood at around 10 million. At around April, that number had swelled to 300 million (Engadget, 2020). The massive explosion of users created substantial logistical problems for the company. It is not every day that we can hear a company bemoan the sudden deluge of customers, but Zoom gave us that opportunity for posterity. In the end, it did manage well to handle the upsurge in clients.

It paid off quite handsomely too. In 2019 when Zoom went public, it traded at $68 around January. Around February 2021, it was trading at $361 for a gain of 531%.

While it’s still an open question how Zoom’s fate will pan out post-pandemic, there is no strong reason to assume that it is not ready for the opening of the global economy.

In order to keep up with the pandemic, organizations had to shift funds from other initiatives and invest those in crucial digitalization campaigns. The result is that even with the pandemic, direct digital transformation (DX) is on target to reach $6.8 trillion by 2023, at a healthy CAGR of 15.5% from 2020 to 2023 (IDC, 2020). Finally, IDC predicts that 70% of all organizations will have accelerated use of digital technologies in areas of business resiliency, employee productivity, and customer engagement.

Accelerated digital transformation highlights:

• The IT industry is poised to accelerate digital transformation.
• The focus of digital transformation will be in areas of business resiliency, employee productivity, and customer engagement.
• In many ways, Zoom exemplified digital transformation during the pandemic
• Despite the pandemic, digital transformation showed strong performance as companies focused funds on digital transformation initiatives.