With the Covid-19 pandemic making both workers and consumers more dependent on digital services, businesses had to rush to enable remote working and improve the customer experience. Both of these monumental tasks fell on the shoulders of digital architects, who are now reporting being under more pressure to deliver digital projects than ever before.
Polling roughly 450 digital architects in the US, UK, France, and Germany on their working experiences over the past year, Couchbase found that almost half feel under extremely high pressure. Before the pandemic, less than a fifth (19 percent) felt the same way.
Still, most of them are managing to deliver results; almost half (48 percent) said they were able to ensure the pandemic did not disrupt projects.
For the majority of digital architects, Covid-19 has made it harder to get the right technology in place for digital transformation. Some regretted previous decisions, which made completing digital transformation during the lockdown more challenging. Cloud infrastructure and database decisions were the two most frequently listed.
Going forward, just 13 percent of organizations are still in the planning phase when it comes to digital transformation, down from 22 percent two years ago. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, Couchbase concludes, nearly all organizations are committed to digital projects that are underway.
“Considering the pressure they are under and the obstacles in their way, architects’ performance in 2020 has been remarkable,” said Ravi Mayuram, SVP of Engineering and CTO at Couchbase. He believes organizations should make sure their digital architects are equipped with the right tools, as relying too much on legacy technology “will hold them back and make matters worse."