Veteran tech CEO Bill McDermott says the coronavirus crisis is turbocharging the rise of the digital workplace: 'Work is never going back to what it once was'

• Veteran tech leader Bill McDermott, the CEO of cloud giant ServiceNow who once led software giant SAP, said the coronavirus crisis will lead to a dramatic shift to a digital workplace.
• "What we're seeing now is a massive realization that work is never going to go back to what it once was," he told Business Insider. "The reality is this is a new reality. This is one of those major moments where everything is going to change."
• He said businesses and governments that have embraced digital tools to give their employees more flexibility in the way they work will fare better than those that have not.
• "What's fascinating is productivity has actually gone up from home," he said. "It actually surprised me."
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Veteran technology executive CEO Bill McDermott says the coronavirus crisis is a shock event that will turbocharge the rise of the digital workplace.

"What we're seeing now is a massive realization that work is never going to go back to what it once was," he told Business Insider. "The reality is this is a new reality. This is one of those major moments where everything is going to change."

McDermott is CEO of ServiceNow, which offers cloud tools to automate a business's workflow and operations, a post he took on only recently after stepping down as longtime chief executive of business software giant SAP.

The pandemic has forced a dramatic shift in the way people work with millions of employees required to work remotely to slow the spread of COVID-19, the coronavirus disease. McDermott said this has underscored the importance of digital systems and tools that give people more flexible options in their work.

Throughout the world, companies and public agencies are turning to different digital platforms, such as ServiceNow, Zoom and Slack, to connect with employees.

"If you think about all the internal meetings that take place, people flying to different locations, not just the health and safety risks associated with that, but also the cost risk associated with that, all those things that are going to now be viewed in a different lens," he said.

McDermott said the shift quickly became evident to him as his team responded to the crisis, including fielding inquiries from customers.

"Many of the meetings that I've done myself in the last couple of weeks have been done with video teleconferencing technologies," he said. "Sometimes the customer is enabled for that, and sometimes they aren't."

Businesses and government agencies that have embraced new technologies clearly are adapting faster and easier to the drastic change, McDermott said. Clearly, businesses "that are wedded to non-digital business models or that have not digitized their workflows" will likely face more challenges in this time of crisis, he said.

"Many companies today are still non-digital," he said. "Their workflows are paper-based, and they're doing things to spreadsheets, and paper-based processes. These are proving inadequate at a time when the world is vulnerable to shocks like the coronavirus crisis.

"They have to reorient work based upon dealing with different dilemmas or opportunities, such as COVID-19," he said. "And if it's not COVID-19, it'll be something else next year."

McDermott said the sudden shift to remote workplaces has produced some surprises within his organization.

"What's fascinating is productivity has actually gone up from home," he said. "It actually surprised me."

In many cases, meetings and coordination activities have actually gone much smoother.

"Because we're urgently on the case, it actually adds to the value because you get to the punchline of what needs to be done quicker," he said. "And the customer, because they're in a crisis, appreciate that ten times more. I think the reverberations of this will live on in the world of work in the new workplace. I think people will really start thinking about their work life in an entirely holistic way as a result of this crisis."

Got a tip about ServiceNow or another tech company? Contact this reporter via email at bpimentel@businessinsider.com, message him on Twitter @benpimentel or send him a secure message through Signal at (510) 731-8429. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.