The world is amid the biggest crisis ever in modern history. The speed at which this Wuhan virus – COVID-19, spread around the world is unfathomable. Before the countries could seriously understand the gravity of the threat, COVID-19 engulfed some of the major economic nations. It has already ravaged some of the biggest economies, including the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the USA badly. Innumerable people have died, and the death toll continues to rise dangerously every single day.
While countries are battling to contain the pandemic and flatten the curve, clearly all the countries have been caught off guard. They just seem to be abysmally unprepared as well under-prepared to handle this invisible threat. At the time of writing this article, the confirmed cases of people diagnosed with COVID-19 is staggering 736116, while the number of reported deaths around the world is a whopping 34948! (source: https://www.trackcorona.live/)
Just like there are two sides of a coin, this world-wide pandemic has allowed all the stakeholders to reassess and re-align the business processes across industries so that people, communities, businesses do not suffer losses on account of future natural calamities. While the business losses will run into trillions of dollars, the rippling effects could be even more devastating.
We will try to assess both – downturn and opportunities created by the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Downturns
Since there has been a complete lockdown in most parts of the world severely affected by the virus attack, all the economic activities, sans essential goods, have come to a sudden halt. All the manufacturing industries, trading, hotels, restaurants, and travel businesses are closed. Only essential industries like milk and bread are operating with a skeletal staff.
Manufacturing companies that rely heavily on one country like China, for sourcing will see the most prominent disruptions. Apple, for instance, depends heavily on China, the country at the epicentre of the pandemic is likely to be severely impacted. Similarly, many pharmaceuticals companies in India rely heavily on Chinese companies to procure intermediaries to produce medicines.
This brings us to the question of whether depending on one country either for components, intermediaries or finished products, is a good idea? Surely, there will be a tectonic shift in the business processes of the manufacturing companies once the world reboots and begins the ordinary business operations post COVID-19 era.
The Opportunities
1. Highspeed Net Connectivity
The lockdown in many countries has forced people to remain indoors. This has increased the consumption of wireless data tremendously as more people are browsing the internet simultaneously. This has exposed the limitation of 4G technology, that’s prevalent in most countries now. YouTube and Netflix have announced the lowering of the picture quality so that there is no buffering. People are unable to watch videos in 4K or Full HD (1080) anymore.
The telecom carriers around the world would do well to expedite the rolling out of 5G. Governments, along with all the stakeholders, should take this opportunity to work together and remove the bottlenecks that are impeding the 5G rollout.
2. Enhanced Use of Telemedicine
The need to have more doctors and medical staff in hospitals around the world has been accentuated clearly through this pandemic. Since producing doctors overnight is not feasible, it is pertinent to adopt technologies that support telemedicine so that the top doctors in big hospitals could help the people living in towns and villages.
The world would be a better place where people living in remote areas would be able to consult top doctors through telemedicine. This can potentially save innumerable lives and help people living in villages feel more empowered.
3. Smart Cities and Villages
While everyone talks about Smart Cities, COVID-19 has given an opportunity to all the stakeholders in developing countries like India to conceive plans to build Smart Villages on priority. Smart Villages should be self-sustainable, with ample lucrative work opportunities for the youth. This will help curb the problem of migration of people to cities in search of work opportunities. This will decrease the load on overtly crowded towns and help in reducing the rapid urbanization.
While governments could expedite Smart City projects, stakeholders should take this as an opportunity to plan Smart Villages and engage with all concerned to get this plan going at the earliest possible. This will also open-up vast investment opportunities and millions of jobs for the local village youth.
4. More extensive use of Mobile Apps
People are more connected today than ever before. The mobile apps have helped a great deal in these trying times. While groceries home delivery apps like Big Basket are assisting people in staying indoors with home-deliveries, Netflix, YouTube and FB are keeping people engaged. Prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi, widely uses the NaMo app to engage with people and reach out to people with the latest audio and video messages for the nation.
Time to Regroup
While the world is still struggling to tackle the onslaught of COVID-19, it is time for business leaders to plan for the future. While many business processes would require a re-look like over-dependency on one country. The manufacturing companies are likely to be worst affected, so they are the ones who would need to regroup and plan in such a way that future pandemics and natural calamities do not impact them much.
Service industries mostly have long-term contracts, so they are not going to be affected adversely in the short run. Moreover, in most service industries, many profiles do not need a physical presence in the office, so people can continue to work from home and remain productive.
As mentioned above, the world needs a faster adoption of 5G and telemedicine on a bigger scale. The idea of Smart Villages should be tempting and should be lapped up by the entrepreneurs in no time. Mobile apps continue to find innovative uses and ever-expanding traction among the masses.
Tough times never last, but tough companies last for long. There is plenty of inspiration around. Companies like Coca-Cola, Tata Group, DuPont, Colgate, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, among others have weathered multiple rough times. Not only they emerged stronger each time, but they are thriving competitively, well poised to take on the new world in years to come.