COVID-19: Building on a trusted platform

July 14, 2020

July 2020: Building on a trusted platform

As lockdowns have been imposed across the globe in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers have turned in huge numbers to digital channels for entertainment, information, education, and to stay in touch with family and friends. In combination with the rapid move for many to working from home, it's led to a whole new emphasis on the importance of the offerings that media companies and communications service providers (CSPs) deliver.

As the world enters a new phase, we wanted to find out how consumers have assessed providers during the pandemic, and what they might look for in the future. To do that, we surveyed more than 4400 consumers located in 12 countries across 5 continents.

Explore how, in their response to the early days of the pandemic, Communications and Media companies have built trust by playing an integral role in consumers' wellbeing, their ability to keep in touch with family and friends and stay productive in their work.

March 2020: The Challenge for Communications and Media

All industries are affected by COVID-19, but Communications and Media companies are generally well positioned. They are mobilizing to adapt to demand changes and will play a critical role in supporting governments, consumers and businesses during the uncertain times ahead.

Connecting, informing, supporting

Navigating the human and business impact of COVID-19 in the Communications & Media industries .

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How to manage now

With COVID-19, the time to act is now. Deferred decisions and delayed actions have immediate and longer-term business consequences. To minimize business disruption, protect employees and serve customers, Communications and Media organizations must take steps to be able to dynamically adapt to rapidly changing consumer and business needs, and global and local conditions.  

In addition to creating an Elastic Digital Workplace for their people, Communications and Media organizations are assessing and quickly mobilizing their COVID-19 responses to:

Response governance

Create and deploy a response room infrastructure and leadership
Stand up cross-functional rapid response teams to deal with emerging challenges
Communications: focus on surge in demand for data, network optimization, customer queries and complaints, workforce management etc.
Media: focus on revenue protection, content & advertising, workforce management etc.

Business continuity

Assess and address potential supply chain and network disruption
Validate business continuity plans – internally and with external partners
Manage employee stress and mental health with positive actions – create a thorough employee engagement plan
Prepare to 'return to normal' as efficiently as feasible – think long-term
Prepare and enable remote working
Explore options to address continuity of essential services
Assess financial implications and identify interventions to improve cash flow

Network management

Identify and prioritize mission critical network needs (e.g. healthcare, government)
Set up a cross functional team for short term optimization efforts
Set up public data lake and collection engine to aggregate network key performance indicators leveraging machine learning platforms
Engage with suppliers, partners and government organizations to ensure service continuity
Act now, and prepare for next – acceleration measures for network virtualization

Content & advertising

Create 'distributed' workforce management & technology plans for core activities across content creation, content distribution & advertising
Develop market and company scenarios that reflect near term and longer-term shifts
Evaluate end-to-end content supply chain; accelerate digitization and automation initiatives and cloud migration
Assess advertising impacts from content changes; build flexibility and speed into ad sales and operations
Forecast cash flow impacts; explore rapid cost reduction and management approaches to optimize resources

Customer intimacy

As stores close, realign workforce to ramp up contact centre capacity to handle increase in customer contacts
Ensure online commerce is easy and convenient for both consumers and businesses as demand shifts from physical to digital
Proactively engage with customers, keeping them informed of relevant updates and support services
Set up a design studio facility to analyse customer data, understand needs and leverage this to enrich service catalogue and customer offers
Support cash flow challenged consumers and businesses

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What's next for communications and media companies?

Accenture’s COVID-19 Response Center Framework includes specific market actions, differentiated assets and capabilities, and innovative technology enablers to help support our Communications and Media industry clients, their people and businesses.

Our people, proven accelerators and ecosystem partners are available to help enable a rapid response.

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