"Looking ahead, embracing the digital reality is a necessity for all companies, which involves innovating and building technological capabilities. Digital transformation is a source of value for every company," said the dean.
In 2020, the pandemic accelerated certain processes and brought about more profound changes, notably a shift in how we view people—their expectations, behaviors, habits, and demands—given that the pandemic restricted mobility and encouraged remote activities, he explained. He added that some of these behaviors will continue even after we have overcome COVID-19, but others will change.
The pandemic shattered the notion that everything had to be handled in person, even for tech companies that were technologically prepared but lacked the leadership needed for remote work and failed to understand the process of personal transformation during the pandemic.
Mangarelli cited the healthcare and education sectors as examples of how companies have quickly adapted to technological changes.
Regarding education, he noted that teaching a remote class is far from simply joining a virtual meeting on Zoom and starting to speak; rather, there are didactic and pedagogical challenges that teachers had to face in a very short period of time.