March 15, 2020: Puerto Rico initiates the first US stay-at-home order due to coronavirus. Four days later, California did the same. Within days, forty more states implemented their own stay-at-home orders, some remaining in effect for more than two months.

Coronavirus expeditiously proved, for many industries, that “the show must go on.” If organizations lacked process or infrastructure to respond, the successful ones likely (and quickly) adopted or expanded cloud technologies as part of their digital transformation efforts.

For work to continue despite an overnight, 180-shift in culture and policy, leaders were forced to rely on some level of technology to connect with their teams. Work.com is a platform utilized by RCP to implement work-from-home health and safety protocols. RCP recommends Zoom™, Slack® or Google Meet™ for user-friendly tools to connect with remote team members. 

Digital transformation strategies are available across all industries, to businesses of any size. Simply put, by using cloud-based tools to connect with customers and employees, organizations maintain contact and relevance with their internal and external target audiences. For small- to medium-sized or any rapidly growing business, employing DT tactics may have been the difference between survival and a screeching halt.

Workers exited offices not knowing they wouldn’t return for months. Their first days back may have seemed like a time warp. The half-drunk bottle of water still sitting on the desk. The page-a-day desk calendar open to March 13. An even layer of dust blanketing everything. For those businesses still operating remotely, by choice or decree, was the pandemic impetus for their evolution to digital transformation? Perhaps 2021 will tell.