How The Impact Of The Pandemic Has Created A Need For Technology Service Providers

Advisor and investor at ConnectBud and CBNITS.

Whenever an economic slowdown takes place, it can be caused by any number of events: the dot-com bubble (2000-2002), the Great Recession (2007-2009) or, most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s during these times that enterprises start cutting on spending and focus on their core technologies. However, that doesn’t mean that they don’t need other peripherals in the company. This is when technology service providers come into the picture and play a crucial role in filling up the gap in a cost-effective manner. Technology service providers tend to be cost-effective because of the nature of the business they are in.

The economic uncertainty brings a need to scale up and scale down requirements for a specific area, and having a technology service provider gives you that leverage. A suitable technology service provider for an enterprise will have resources that can be onboarded in less than one week and scale down quickly when necessary.

Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson believes the coronavirus sped up digital transformation by six years for companies. This is backed up by a recent survey from his company that showed “97% of executives say the pandemic sped up their digital transformation, 95% say they’re looking for new ways to engage customers and 79% say Covid-19 increased budgets for digital transformation.” All this data points toward an increasing demand for quality technology service providers — and the technology providers who are equipped to meet the new demand will rise.

Seed and angel investments were down in Q2 2020 compared to Q4 2019. While the money coming into this market is slowing down, the need for technology service providers has increased tremendously, as now companies are low on funds, but they still need to get work done. 

Because of the Covid-19 crisis, there is a huge opportunity in the tools that enable remote working, health care-related products, education and the cybersecurity space. As an innovator and founder, you want to cash in on the opportunity that has arisen because of this situation, so you need rapid a prototype and develop it in a cost-effective way. This is where technology service providers, which have experience in the latest technologies along with working in a startup-type environment, can be your best bet.

With remote work now being the new normal, it has opened a huge space for technology service providers to work without boundaries. 

Technology service provider giants, like TCS, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Accenture and Globant, saw major growth in their stock values last year, and a contributing factor to this is how Covid-19 has affected our economy and the way we work. 

It’s time for the other, smaller technology service providers to ride the wave and get ready to take a dive.

To capitalize on these conditions and proceed with an extreme growth trajectory, a good technology service provider needs to have working experience in the latest cutting-edge technologies, experience working in a startup environment, and proficiency with health care, education, security, and remote enablement tools.

A good technology service provider is one that is cost-effective as well as well-versed with the latest tech stacks (Flutter and React Native for mobile applications, Angular 9, Angular 10, React js for front end) and technologies (robotic process automation, cloud automation, machine learning).

I have personally seen this space grow tremendously over the last year, and I expect the pattern to continue for at least the next two years.


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