100% Digital Company - We live in digitalization!

Author: Ulrike Otto, Senior Manager Brandmarketing bei TDSoftware

The year 2020 began like any other year, with several annual reviews, the usual trends, and future forecasts. These once again predicted the breakthrough of VR, AR, AI, and other gadgets. On edge, the topic "New Work" was discussed from time to time. Nobody could have guessed that only a few weeks later, an essential part of it, namely the "homeoffice," would become an absolute must. This development came without warning, as suddenly the "spring of video calls" and the more or less impossible option of “homeschooling" fell upon us.

Across all industries, the corona pandemic confronts companies with enormous challenges that we all have to face. What does this mean for our everyday working and business life? Working from home, digital meetings, VR conferences. The more companies digitalize their processes, the faster they can react to unforeseeable changes or even future crises and thus make their business sustainable and future-proof.

The fact that TDSoftware lives digitalization is not only reflected in our products - it is true internally too. We rely on the latest technological approaches to optimize our business processes within the company. Even before the crisis, TDSoftware was already one of the companies that was through and through digital. Since 2016 we have had a presence on Twitter, and we have been using Slack as our internal messaging platform for two years. And before Slack, we relied on digital office chat communication - namely Jabber, an open-source instant messaging service. We use innovative tools to manage our internal processes and pursue a paperless office strategy - from Jira and Confluence to Agantty and Microsoft Teams. From the first applicant contact, to the employment contract, all the way to the management of absences and salaries - everything has been digitalized.

By using Prescreen (e-Recruiting), Personio (all-in-one software for personnel administration), CANDIS (AI-supported software concept for accounting), or DocuSign, these tools enable us to optimize and automate internal processes. These tools allow us to concentrate fully on our core business.

Without significant difficulties at the beginning of the Corona crisis, we managed the switch to working from home with all our employees overnight. But even in a 100% digital company like TDSoftware, new times are beginning. Change is certain! It is up to us to accept that there will always be situations like now, which require adaptation and reorientation. Even if they are inconvenient, we have to accept them and learn from them.

For example, the crisis mode has led us to set up a new format for our monthly team meeting within just one week - the new TDSoftware University. In the future, presentations on product updates, newly used tools, or even takeaways from conference participation, will be recorded by speakers from our team and made available on an online platform. This format allows everyone in the team to participate in the internal training course independently of the location and time zones. Furthermore, the weekly team meeting with all employees no longer takes place on-site in the office, but remotely via Microsoft Teams.

We will undoubtedly continue to establish new routines in the team after the corona pandemic, where we have had a good experience in recent months. After all, in addition to the infrastructure, digital transformation also requires an attitude that will enable a company to resist crises in the future - a culture of trust, flexible leadership in networks, more agile teams, a corresponding mindset, and an adapted management style. True to the motto "Keep Calm and Go Digital," we look forward to the future as a remote team.