Beyond the new normal – the Digital Shifts in working, living and business

People and data are key to survive this era of change

The sudden and unexpected impact of COVID-19 has accelerated change in our values and lifestyle for years to come.
Before the pandemic, people's behaviors and values were quite fixed around established routines, such as going to work or studying at school.
However, COVID-19 has fundamentally changed our sense of normal behaviors and values.
For example, remote working has not only normalized the concept of "working at home," it has also simultaneously and forcibly changed the way meetings are held, the way documents are prepared, the way events are organized and even the relationship between managers and their teams.

As a result, our values have started to change, as we adapt to the "new normal."

‘Beyond the New Normal’ is a world where behaviors and values will continue to diversify and change.
We believe that the keys to navigating through this era of change are people and data. Specifically, we need to understand the perspective of people who want to work and live their best lives and the perspective of data, which is now agile enough to detect conditions and changes.
Digital Shifts focuses on these two perspectives.

Work Life Shift enriches work and life

Firstly, let's look at it from the perspective of people. As digital technology enables work, education, medical care and everyday life to become more convenient, regardless of location, people are adopting more diverse values and lifestyles. Changes in values and behaviors are changing both our daily lives and the way we work. Physical constraints are being removed from many jobs, greatly improving work/life balance for individuals. For example, the combination of global remote technology and avatars is creating jobs and work environments that make considerations like physical location and working hours irrelevant.

Fujitsu has been successfully rolling out its own implementation of Work Life Shift, focused on changing the way we work, since 2020.

Managers and their teams have been working together to transform HR processes, office environments, IT systems, working styles and cultures, resulting in significant changes over the past 12 months. By implementing technology in a human-centric way we can create workforces that are more inclusive and sustainable. They can be more productive, more creative and deliver better customer experiences.

According to a survey of Fujitsu employees, more than 90% of them perceive that the Work Life Shift has positively changed the way they work and live.
In recent months, we’ve embarked on further initiatives, such as changing evaluation systems, evolving leadership styles, revitalizing internal social networks and introducing cloud services to realize more modern ways of working.
Based on these experiences, we can now help our customers around the world to consider and adopt their own Work Life Shift initiatives.

Improving employee satisfaction will support the growth of companies and drive new value for society.

Data Driven Management makes data valuable

Next, I would like to consider the data perspective.
While there are four types of management resources (people, things, money and data), this age of change is rapidly making data more important than ever.
However, while the quantity of data continues to increase, there are many difficult challenges in turning data into real value.
For example, data may be spread around the organization, it may not be connected, it may be out of date, it may not be able to drive value on its own, there may not be the skills needed to exploit it or it may not even exist in a digitized form.
While it's not possible to magically turn data into value in a single step, it’s clear that data is rapidly assuming greater importance in this age of increasingly fast-paced change.

At Fujitsu, we link data from disparate systems across an organization, as well as analyzing vast amounts of external data, to understand the environment in which the organization is operating and to drive new insights.

For example, in the global rice trading market, the traditional analog exchange between related parties and the fragmentation of information was hampering business growth opportunities. However, by building a cross-industry trading platform that digitally connects not only sellers and buyers but also stakeholders surrounding the rice market, including transportation and finance, we’ve been able to significantly increase global rice trading opportunities.

Instead of relying on experience and intuition, Data Driven Management can connect ever-changing data and enable fact-based decision-making, transforming management, business, industry and society in the process.

What will we need in the Beyond New Normal era?

In the Beyond New Normal era, it will be essential to accurately capture and understand business situations in real-time, to formulate fast hypotheses and to take quick action.
The effectiveness of these measures will be further monitored through data, enabling the course of action to be corrected as necessary.
The ability to complete these cycles quickly will be essential to winning in this age of change.
By shining a light on data and letting it tell the truth, we can enhance the resilience and responsiveness of management and employees across entire organizations. Indeed, for many organizations, the willingness of management to make data its ally is the first important step towards successful digital transformation.

While COVID-19 is still with us today, a new post-pandemic era is coming.
Our behaviors and values have already changed significantly, and there will be further changes as we look further beyond the new normal.
Our focus should remain on the critical relationships between people and data.
By digitally shifting the way we work, live, and do business, we can say goodbye to the old normal and move forward with confidence to the Beyond New Normal era.