Going digital, faster in Canada Going digital, faster in Canada Going digital, faster in Canada

​Pre-COVID-19, private and public organizations were moving towards a digital business model, travelling at varying speeds. But the pandemic forced a dramatic acceleration, both in the speed of change and the required investment to digitally transform.

According to Canadian insights from KPMG's recent global survey, organizations are investing heavily in technology to address immediate concerns, ranging from falling revenue and interrupted supply chains to building longer-term competitiveness and operational resilience.

Through our work across Canada, we have observed the following common priorities among organizations as they seek to accelerate their digital maturity through the pandemic:

Preparing for economic recovery: While global economies are expected to recover after the pandemic, uncertainty continues to stress-test our economy; e.g., How quickly organizations will rebound, how will consumer and citizen behaviours shift, which ongoing geopolitical challenges will abate and which will escalate, etc.

• Is your leadership team leveraging market signals, trends and predictive analytics to uncover future opportunities and threats and build in additional resiliency measures?
• How are you building in resilience measures for future crises or challenges?

Increasing digital access to organizational services: Technology has enabled a generational shift in our behaviours for accessing services and consuming experiences digitally.

• Are your marketing, sales and development teams focused on improving the customer /citizen experience of your digital channels?
• Are your services easily accessible and seamless in delivery?

Connecting and modernizing corporate functions: The pandemic has accelerated cloud adoption and enterprise functional transformational efforts across all sectors in order to stay connected, resilient and operational.

• Have you transformed your operating model to unlock new efficiencies, benefits, and value for your people, processes and technologies?
• Are you making ad-hoc or isolated investments, or have you planned out your digital maturity journey?

Building more flexible and resilient supply chains: Ongoing geopolitical disruptions and regulatory pressures continue to stress the need for agile, responsive and resilient supply chains connecting organizations with their suppliers and customers. The mantra for many businesses is changing from efficiency and low-cost country sourcing, to supply chain resilience and visibility, to reduce complexity and uncertainty.

• Do you have end-to-end visibility for your entire supply chain? How are you managing supplier risk management?
• Are you digitally-enabling your supply chain, ensuring connections with your front office (marketing, sales and CRM) and back office (HR, IT and Finance administrative functions) for a seamless customer experience?
• Have you developed a strong cyber posture to protect the data of your stakeholders?

Workforce of the future: Just as most organizations had to pivot to virtual operations through the various lockdowns, they now must consider what operating model to use in a post-COVID-19 world.

• Will you remain virtual, return completely to the physical office, or operate a hybrid workforce? How will you ensure the balance between in-person communication versus the benefits of flexible work?
• How are you reimagining the workplace (physical and/or remote) to improve the employee experience by enabling purpose and value-driven work?
• How are you ensuring the continued health and wellness of your employees?
• How will you virtually empower HR onboarding and employee retention?

Our Canadian findings tie into the five key challenges observed in the global report below.

If you'd like to discuss any element of this research or find out more about how a Connected Enterprise can exponentially drive return on your transformation investments and accelerate the digital maturity of your organization, please contact us.