With the learnings from the ongoing pandemic, businesses have to adopt transformation to survive in the changing situations and help revive the economy of the country, experts said.

They also said such business transformation requires dynamic leadership, emotional bonding among team members, trust and above all readiness to accept innovation and fresh ideas.

The views came at a members' conference on "Business transformation - recipe for survival and success" organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) through a digital platform on Saturday.

Grameenphone CEO Yasir Azman said technology is just a tool for business transformation, but real transformation depends on the transparency between the leaders and members of any organisation.

"No leadership can change an organisation if leaderships in the different ladders do not collaborate and cooperate. Business change is a must as learning from the ongoing pandemic will help businesses alter their operation quicker than it was thought earlier."

"We will ultimately understand that everything we had before Covid-19 was not good," Azman said.

"Our economy and the business have been hit hard by Covid-19 and for successful survival, digital transformation of business is a must," said ICAB president Muhammad Farooq.

"Before the pandemic, a lot of discussions were held on the implications of technology in our future work. However, the future has arrived sooner than anticipated as companies and workers shifted to remote working in order to contain the transmission of Covid-19, dramatically changing how we work."

Farooq said remote virtual meetings are now commonplace and economic activity has increased on a range of digital platforms.

He said the most obvious changes of the ongoing pandemic are the infusion of data-enabled services in all spheres of life.

"We entered into a new era of the fourth industrial revolution which is categorised by not just a technological innovation but a fusion of technologies in our day-to-day life." 

"We must embrace this change," he said.

The keynote speaker Jasmine Ahmed, vice president for global finance transformation at News Corp, New York, explained why in the post Covid-19 economy people have to embrace the new normal working scenario at home with a view to running the organisations leveraging on the internet.

She stressed the need to connect with customers along with the expanded delivery services system by applying personalised virtual experiences. 

Dewan Nurul Islam, former president of the ICAB and managing director of Grant Thornton Consulting Bangladesh, was also present.