The New Normal in IT. Gregory S. Smith
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United Parcel Service (UPS) reported in April 2021 that “daily volume jumped more than 14 percent in the first three months” of 2021 compared to the same period a year ago.60 The company reported net income of $4.79 billion, up almost 400 percent from the same period last year with total revenue reported at $22.91 billion, a 27 percent increase.61
The telecommunications market benefited greatly from the increase in demand for cloud and more robust bandwidth from employees who were working from home. The medical field (general practitioners, specialists, and even surgeons) was impacted during the height of the pandemic as elective surgeries were postponed and hospital staff converged to support the large influx of Covid-19 patients. Hospitals across the globe lost billions in revenue. Some are now attempting to recoup their losses by charging patients for Covid-19 hospital services via lawsuits.
I spoke with a number of physicians across a wide path of specialties (general practitioners in family practice, specialists like endocrinologist, pain management, orthopedic, dermatologists) as well as physical therapists. All described impacts to their practices, including revenue decreases and how they had to scramble to provide telehealth services to patients. Telehealth options within medical practices around the globe increased rapidly in 2020, starting shortly after the height of the pandemic. Data centers and telecommunications vendors reaped hyper growth rewards to support these services.
One such specialist provided some valuable input into the impact to their practice and how technologies like telehealth have helped lesson the revenue blow during the pandemic and likely set them up for future success postpandemic.
Medical Profession Survey Question: What impact did Covid-19 have on the medical profession during the peak of the pandemic in 2020?
Covid-19 has had a substantial effect on the medical community in both outpatient clinic and inpatient hospital settings. In the outpatient clinical setting, it caused an immediate pivot from in-person clinic visits to virtual telemedicine visits. This created substantial anxiety and confusion around how to code and bill these visits, whether insurance would accept these claims, and how to manage these visits from a technological perspective. In the initial days, there was substantial confusion from physicians and patients about which communication software to use and how to implement it safely.
While patients became comfortable with many of the early adopted teleconferencing platforms, the software did not yet support the encryption required to be HIPPA compliant. This was eased by the U.S. government's relaxation of regulatory restrictions on telemedicine communications.
Our clinic saw a substantial initial reduction in patient encounters and corresponding overall revenue decline that began in March 2020 and continued until August of the same year. Clinic visits are now 50 percent virtual, and I predict that they will continue to remain at least 50 percent into the foreseeable future. This will only be tenable from a business perspective if insurance companies continue to reimburse for telemedicine visits at rates comparable to office visits.
—DR. JOSE SOROS, MD, Pain Management Specialist, Point Performance
I asked my CxO panel some questions about revenue, remote work, use of consultants, staff productivity, and sourcing strategy before, during, and post pandemic. Following are their answers with additional input noted on certain questions:
CxO Survey Question: What revenue impacts occurred in your organization during the height of the pandemic in 2020? List U.S. and global operations separately if applicable.
U.S. Operations
20 percent responded that revenue increased 8 percent in 2020 and 100 percent in 2021.
20 percent responded with no change in revenue during 2020.
20 percent did not respond with revenue data for confidentiality reasons.
20 percent responded that U.S. revenue decreased by 51 percent or more in 2020.
20 percent responded that U.S. revenue increased by 31–40 percent in 2020.
Global Operations
20 percent responded that global revenue decreased by 51 percent or more in 2020.
CxO Survey Question: Have you recovered revenue to pre-Covid-19 levels? If yes, when? If not, when do you project revenue to return to pre-Covid-19 levels?
40 percent responded with yes.
40 percent responded with no.
20 percent did not respond for confidentiality reasons.
The average projected date when revenue is expected to return to pre-Covid-19 levels is 2022 forward.
CxO Survey Question: What percentage of your full organization was working remotely prior to Covid-19?
80 percent responded with 0–20 percent remote.
20 percent responded with 81–100 percent remote.
CxO Survey Question: What percentage of your full organization went to remote work during the pandemic in 2020?
80 percent responded with 81–100 percent remote.
20 percent responded with 41–60 percent remote.
CxO Survey Question: What percentage of your full organization is working remotely today (Q1 2021)?
50 percent responded with 81–100 percent remote.
25 percent responded with 41–60 percent remote.
25 percent responded with 61–80 percent remote.
CxO Survey Question: What percentage of your full organization will work remotely post-Covid-19 (assume 2022 forward)?
20 percent responded with 0–20 percent remote.
60 percent responded with 41–60 percent remote.
20 percent responded with 61–80 percent remote.
Impacts on Consultants and Organizations Sourcing Strategy
As indicated previously, some sectors did quite well during the pandemic, including information technology professionals and consultants, who were in high demand to provide a variety of services to struggling organizations as a result of the global pandemic. Specifically, technology consultants did well assisting organizations with remote access solutions to a high percentage of organizational staff count, moving applications into cloud services, migrating on-premise voice systems into the cloud, and with large multiyear projects that were difficult to pause or cancel. That said, other sectors of the consulting world were not immune from impacts related to high global unemployment rates.
I've been through four recessions in my IT career and thought I'd seen it all until I witnessed the global and domestic U.S. impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Typically, in a recession, the first to go in any organizational cuts are nonessential expenses. Second is capital spending for projects that have not yet been initiated. Third are consultants, followed lastly by staff. Organizations really don't like letting go of staff, even for short-term durations, because they fear the institutional knowledge and organizational experience that could be suffered. Rehiring resources after a recovery can take time with rebuilding lost institutional knowledge sometimes