VIEWPOINT
T H E D I G I T A L A G E
THERE ARE MORE THAN 120,000 REASONS TO JOIN THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION AT IRELAND’S PLUMBING & HEATING MAGAZINE… Fast and furious
I n response to the Covid-19 crisis, just about everyone and their dog climbed on board the digital express. Both in their professional and personal lives, suppliers, consumers and employees were left with no option but to embrace digital technology like never before. “Covid-19 was the digital accelerant of the decade’, is how cloud communications platform provider Twilio described this technological by-product of the pandemic. Some 92% of UK businesses now say their organisation is ‘very’ or ‘somewhat likely’ to further expand their digital communications channels, with Coronavirus accelerating digital strategies by a worldwide average of six years. Maurice Mortell, Managing Director for global data centre Equinix in Ireland, agrees, give or take 12-months. “Before Covid-19, the digital journey was still at an embryonic stage for many Irish enterprises. Many businesses
have made rapid progress since then, with some cramming 5-year digital plans into less than a year, or a matter of weeks in some cases.” At Ireland’s Plumbing and Heating Magazine we’ve witnessed this digital transformation first-hand. Of course, we had enjoyed a sizeable growth in our online and social media networks before the lockdown, but recent months have just been ‘mad’, to quote our Digital Manager Cathal Delea. Take June for example. In that single month alone we had 123,574 social media impressions (each time a post is viewed). That’s a four-fold increase on the previous four weeks. And if you’re not impressed by ‘impressions’, maybe the 6,152 unique monthly web visitors, 15,641 social media followers and 3,282 subscribers to our E-zine are more to your liking. The Covid-19 story still has some way to run. The full impact and lasting implications of
the pandemic have yet to unfold. What we do know is that industry has found a way of adapting by fast-tracking the digital revolution. Digital is the key to communications with stakeholders and customers, with more than a third of UK business decision makers revealing that their digital transformation budgets had ‘dramatically’ increased since Covid-19 and would continue to do so. There are still those who will resist change and the bad news for any heel draggers is that technology moves forward at pace, never back at any speed. The digital transformation is happening now, before our very eyes, and no one can remain blind to the benefits.
“The digital transformation is happening now, before our very eyes, and no one can remain blind to the benefits.”
6 | PLUMBING & HEATING MAGAZINE
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