Two weeks before completing 5 months of voluntary confinement in Uruguay, it was demonstrated that much of the work we do in companies can be carried out from home. While for many technology companies it is not a novelty, for other sectors it is a labor and cultural revolution, part of this revolution is what we call "Enterprise Digital Transformation".
In mid-March when the media reported the first cases of COVID19 in our country, the first step of many companies was to authorize 100% telework at all times, that is to say that all, absolutely all employees, are enabled to work from home. For many, something impossible and improbable and, for others, a dream come true. There were two main reasons that gave peace of mind to the population: first, to keep themselves and their families safe from the virus and, second, the guarantee of the continuity of the labor and economic relationship.
The process was not easy, because it is not enough to tell employees that they can work from home. Many may not have adequate infrastructure to be able to perform tasks such as a notebook, monitor or even a comfortable chair. The companies that were able to adapt were those that were able to help employees set up their workplaces at home and give them access to programs and servers to continue working normally.
After teleworking and investment in collaborative hardware and software, for many companies the next step was the presence on the Internet. Open the companies to the web and adapt the offer of services to the online mode, making sales through digital platforms such as eCommerce, Mercado Libre, Amazon, social networks, Whatsapp, and more. At the same time, they needed to offer their customers electronic payment through debit cards, credit cards, Paypal and even Whatsapp in some countries like Brazil. And, although many businesses refuse to change the form of payment, or simply can not acquire a POS for issues of commission cost, today there are other technological alternatives for a customer to access services and pay digitally. The reality is that paper money is going to disappear sooner or later. The time is getting shorter and shorter for all economic transactions to be 100% digital.
Altimetrik is playing a key role as a technology partner. We want to provide quick solutions to our customers, making change possible in a short period of time, without complications. We are helping companies quickly get ready to be connected to their customers remotely.
In the wake of the Coronavirus, we have received many requests from customers looking for online product sales solutions and we are solving this first step in just 2 months. After achieving this first objective, we are ready for the many others to come. One of them is to identify what they need to do to improve their competitiveness against other companies, what are the tools and platforms they can incorporate for success.
However, we know that companies that could not take this first step, either for reasons of time, budget, infrastructure or the type of service they offer, will unfortunately receive a huge impact on their business. We have even seen that some of them could not continue to operate.
Another major impact of COVID19 was that many people became unemployed. For them, the solution is to train them and give them new technological skills. Many jobs will not be required again, so it is necessary to help them learn to perform less routine tasks, as companies will seek to modernize and take advantage of digital proposals. It is never too late, the important thing is to accept that we are facing a new normality and it is necessary to adapt. For this, in Altimetrik we have digital adoption platforms, which consist of a software layer integrated to another software or website that serves to guide users through the functionalities of the application. The main objective is to help these new users quickly learn how to interact with the technology or application.
Another solution where we are receiving great demand is in technology for the credit sector. Altimetrik is offering a lending platform for banks and other lenders integrated with the market's credit and tax systems, which benefits medium and small businesses. We want to modernize the lending process as we know it, for which we have a tool where lending decisions can be made faster and with less paperwork. The tool allows to analyze both previous loans, tax payments and cash availability of the business, has artificial intelligence to suggest the percentage of risk of debt cancellation of the applicant. The agent of the bank or lender has more information and technological help to decide whether to approve the loan.
In this new stage, Altimetrik is one of the most successful companies in digital business transformation collaboration. We have more than 2,500 software experts distributed around the world: we have offices in the United States, Uruguay, Poland, India and Japan. Since 2012 we have collaborated with large multinational companies in sectors such as finance, healthcare, technology and manufacturing, becoming technology partners of companies like Paypal, Ford, MasterCard, Visa, Unilever and Citibank. We differentiate ourselves from most technology companies because we execute software engineering projects supported by modern platforms, betting on short-term results in an agile and transparent way, without complications. We were named by Gartner as one of the leading companies in mobile solutions.
Thanks to technological advances, we were able to adapt to this new reality. We suffered the process, yes, but we can say that we have succeeded: it is possible to live in a new normality, which I call Normality 2.0.
By Manuel Vidal - Altimetrik
Connect