CGI released a new white paper, 'Charting the path forward with resilience and adaptability' that identifies the key organizational capabilities public and private sector executives need to help navigate significant economic, market and business changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Authored by President & CEO George D. Schindler, the paper is part of an in-depth framework to help clients respond to unprecedented challenges, rebound effectively, and reinvent ways of working.

A central part of the white paper are findings from the CGI Client Global Insights, an annual consultative conversation where CGI leaders meet with business and IT executives to gather their perspectives on the trends affecting their enterprises. Based on the findings and an analysis of those leading enterprises that are producing results from their enterprise-wide digital strategies, the paper identifies three critical organizational capabilities needed to navigate unprecedented challenges:

• Mastering business agility - Organizations will continue to embrace new ways of working to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic. Among commercial executives, business agility is the third most important business priority this year, yet only 18% report their business is highly agile. CGI research indicates that those organizations with high business agility outperform their peers by a factor of 2-3 times in terms of revenue and profitable growth.
• Rethinking the technology supply chain - The pandemic highlighted the importance of the technology supply chain to pivot to new realities with agility and elasticity, and to build more resilience into how organizations deliver their products and services. When asked to rank top innovation investments, executives cite modernization, automation and robotics, and cloud technologies, which are the key elements of modern and resilient technology supply chains.
• Enabling the future of work - Digital engagement with customers and citizens has taken on new importance. Executives cite 'digital employee tools' as their second most important digitization initiative. In addition, 88% of executives are not yet seeing results from enterprise digital strategies.

"The crisis has compelled us to ask many fundamental questions about the way we live, interact, and work. Clearly many changes will occur, but one thing is certain: technology will continue to be at the heart of future value chains that serve consumers and citizens," said Schindler. "While many are making bold predictions on the 'what' and 'when' of the new normal, we believe that it is more important than ever to be centered on 'how' to create value," he added.

Helping clients through economic and market changes for more than 40 years, CGI has demonstrated the ingenuity and capability to help clients examine and reinvent their business value chains to navigate unprecedented change. In addition to the key capabilities clients need to move forward, the white paper includes case study examples from leading performers.