If you’re running a large business, you’re facing extreme levels of uncertainty right now. One factor that may be weighing on your mind as you work from home in self-isolation is how strong your key vendors and service providers will be as they emerge from the other side of the current global crisis. If you’ve made a bet on an emerging technology or a startup vendor, can it deliver once this is all over?
This isn’t a trivial question for decision-makers, who remember the technology market shakeouts that followed the dotcom boom and bust or the great financial crisis. During recessions and market turbulence, numerous household technology brands disappeared as they were absorbed by other companies or were shut down completely.
We can expect strong echoes of 2000/1 and 2007/8 over the next year or two. The causes of the current market turmoil and the recession that will surely follow are different, as is the structure of the tech industry. But we can expect many of the same outcomes as funding for tech companies starts to dry up.
Venture capital-backed companies with high burn rates will soon run out of money as their investors begin to shift funding to less risky investments. Even stock exchange-listed companies without strong balance sheets, pipelines and recurring revenues might start to run short of cash and find it difficult to secure external funding. The result may be a new wave of M&A activity and bankruptcies.
From a robotic process automation (RPA) perspective, NICE is unusually well placed to survive the current market conditions and consolidate our already strong position. Whereas many RPA companies are venture capital-funded and rely only on RPA solutions for their revenues, NICE is a more established company with products of varying maturity in its portfolio as well as a strong balance sheet.
Not only does this enable us to offer a single, complete and integrated platform around protecting people’s money, ensuring their safety and improving their experiences, it also gives us a stable financial foundation. We are able to rapidly innovate in areas such as RPA and advanced analytics because we have mature, high-performing businesses in areas like contact center recording & compliance and workforce optimization​.
This means we can weather the storm in uncertain times. Each of our portfolio business units leverages off the others, providing financial stability and allowing each business unit to keep investing in innovation even when the external economy is challenging. Another benefit of this approach is that it simplifies deployment of new technology at a time you’re eager to reduce risk.
We cannot be certain what the next few months have in store for the world economy. However, well-established portfolio companies with robust finances will be the best placed to drive innovation and support the needs of complex enterprises in a time of crisis and change. This, too reflects what we have seen in other downturns. We’re ready as ever to help you navigate the new world in which we live.
Get in touch with one of our automation experts to discuss how we can give your remote business operations a boost.
