| | FEBRUARY 202219continue well into the future. Some 64 percent of their employees are working primarily from home now, a nine-fold jump from the number prior to the pandemic. Companies giving their employees a computer and an Internet connection but keeping them productive, secure, and working in agile teams from home is more challenging. In fact, the most common areas of increased technology investment serve to boost the efficiency and safety of remote work.One technique successful companies use to create the right alignment and partnership for digital is to think about new opportunities from the customer's perspective. A key part of the focus should be on digital leadership that include a drive to create appropriate learning forums for employees across the organization. If organization is not sure where to start their digital education efforts, a good place might be with analytics training. While social, mobile, and cloud get a lot of attention, when it comes to gaps in digital acumen, it's all about the data. As per a study by HBS Close to three-quarters (73 percent) rated analytics as extremely important to their area of the business (8-10 on a 10-point scale), with another 17 percent rating it as important (6-7). But only a fifth (20 percent) rated their own knowledge and skills in this area highly. The FoundationEven before the pandemic technological progress were especially salient. Technology was disrupting production processes, especially through the rapid scale-up of digital platforms. Digital technology has been challenging with traditional boundaries with changing global value chains and the geography of jobs. After all, technology decreases the costs of doing business, complementing investments in infrastructure, free trade agreements, and other liberalization efforts to reduce trade barriers, which in turn expands global value chains and changes the geography of jobs. New business models -- digital platform firms -- have been able to evolve rapidly from local start-ups to global behemoths, often with few employees or tangible assets. Digital platforms have enabled clusters of businesses to form in underdeveloped rural areas.Technology created quivering shifts in all skills required to succeed in the labor market. While
< Page 9 | Page 11 >