As the world is coming to terms with the virus pandemic that is COVID19, the world as we know it is going to change in more ways than one. Olden orders that were cast—from technological to business—are going to look and behave very differently in the reality that will be post COVID19.
The coronavirus is not in itself inventing this new world, however, it is the catalyst that is fast bringing the new order to the forefront. This pandemic is an inflection point that only gives the old system a huge nudge. The systems that were already under part-stress and part-duress—from globalization to clusterization; automation to
future-of-work—will get newer frameworks that are going to become the principal operating system of a new world order for the next few decades.
While the headline of COVID19 is going to be the unfortunate mass destruction it has brought to nations in terms of lives lost and economic rout, the footnote of COVID19 could very well be the technological and business transformation it will bring along.
While the headline of COVID19 is going to be the unfortunate mass destruction it has brought to nations in terms of lives lost and economic rout, the footnote of COVID19 could very well be the technological and business transformation it will bring along.
In a world that could be known as “After-Covid-2019”, we will see technology playing an enhanced role that will shape and reshape business conduct and consumer behavior. The underlying theme of the technological transformation will revolve around creating business models that will survive in a ‘
less-contact’ society--a concept that will be etched in the collective memory of our society and would see prominence in the years to come.
The current technology is already enabling business continuity—right from global leaders conducting meetings from the forced social-distancing perimeters thrust upon them to business leaders zooming into the homes of their global workforce to review and discuss work items virtually. E-commerce is already ensuring that critical supplies reach the last mile while digital payments ensure that money (and the virus) doesn’t exchange hands.
On the one hand, “food tech” is coming to the rescue of those who have limited culinary skills while on the other hand—for the more “do-it-yourself” populace—cook-at-home meal-kits are keeping the stove on and hunger off. Even high-touch vocations such as doctors and teachers are conducing OPDs (Out Patient Departments) through tele-medicine platforms and classes through online tools.
And all of these technology and business-model innovations haven’t missed the opportunistic eye of Wall-Street. Picture this:
- Blue Apron — A New York-based meal kit subscription service started in 2013, Blue Apron is at the forefront of supplying meal kits to homes that are under severe sheltering guidelines. Blue Apron’s stock is anything but blue. As of March 02, 2020, Blue Apron’s stock price was $2.6 apiece, which registered a strong rally and ended at $15 apiece on March 18, 2020.
- Zoom Video Communications (Zoom.us) — Founded in 2011 in the Silicon-Valley, today, Zoom has become the de-facto platform for video-conferencing. Everyone from world leaders to business heads are dialing into Zoom to conduct business from wherever in the world work-from-home guidelines have been issued. Zoom’s stock price has zoomed from $104 on March 02, 2020 to $150 on March 30, 2020.
- Teladoc Health Inc – Dallas-based Teladoc Health offers virtual care solutions that health-care workers rely upon to provide care in a virtual environment. At the beginning of the Chinese New Year this year, Teladoc shares were trading at $83. On 23 March, 2020, the scrip hit a high of $167—a jump of 100% within a quarter of a year.
The aforementioned examples are a few representations of a larger trend that is unfolding in front of us. The underlying theme is clear—technologies that will enable ‘less-contact’, if not ‘contact-less’, engagements are going to be in lock-step with consumer behavior in the world that would be After-Covid-2019. Classrooms will move to kids-rooms, workspaces will move from long-term leases to on-demand ‘We-Work’ kind-of setups.
Automation, which has so far been at loggerheads with policy makers, is going to find wide acceptance and increased investments. Technologies and businesses around near-autonomous warehouses, robotics, drone-delivery systems, and 3D/additive manufacturing are going to be in the fast lane to adoption.
The adoption of these technologies would ensure that in the event of another pandemic, “business-as-usual” is next to not being disrupted at all.
This would also mean that the fault-lines of such technologies around cyber-security, privacy, and data localization will find renewed interest and scrutiny. Nations would not want their data hubs to be oceans away in a data-center over which they have little to no control.
In conclusion, the ‘after-taste’ of COVID19 is going to linger on for a very long time to come, which will force decision-makers across the world to think of enterprises that have local sensibilities and affirmation to local realities. Adoption of technologies that would keep the ‘green-light’ on—should another pandemic of COVID19 scale happen again—will accelerate, thus, future-proofing businesses against pandemics.
Adoption of technologies that would keep the ‘green-light’ on—should another pandemic of COVID19 scale happen again—will accelerate, thus, future-proofing businesses against pandemics.
The footnote on the technological transformation and, more importantly, policy frameworks around technologies that would enable a ‘less-contact’ society, will be a positive fallout of the Coronavirus pandemic; and, perhaps, could be a defining moment for nations such as India.
After all, major nudges in technology have happened in the greatest crises. As a point in case, back in year 2000, when the world was grappling with the Y2K bug, the Indian IT service industry glittered through the crisis and helped the world navigate the Y2K pandemonium. Today, the same IT industry has become the bedrock of advanced technologies in areas such as deep-learning, which includes Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Machine Vision, amongst others. All these technologies hold immense potential to help us move into a “less contact” world that is more autonomous and resilient.
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