Post Covid -19 : unlocking a new world !
- Sunil Korah
- Apr 11, 2020
- 4 min read
The impact of COVID-19 in many ways is an equalizer, a leveler, and in my view, it’s also a pivot that will set the tone for a new normal. Almost the entire world is in lock-down mode and everyone is anxiously awaiting return to normal. But seriously ask yourself: Do you really want to go back to the normalcy prevailed before the onset of this pandemic? Don’t you see an opportunity to set a new normal? An opportunity to change? This is true for all of us as individuals, businesses, the Government and their policies and our general approach to mother nature and its other constituents towards a harmonious co-existence.
It took a Pandemic to show us the inadequacies in our ‘current normal’, how ill-prepared our systems and structures are and how hollow some of our beliefs. No one thought a pandemic could bring the whole world to its knees and make us realize that there is no distinction between the rich and poor, rich country and poor country, developed nation and developing nation and force us to confront the fact that we can no longer afford to think in isolation. Perhaps the degree of impact is so high because it’s the first time in most of our living memories that we are fighting something of this scale. In the future, there could be many such instances and the world would have learned to deal with it. Notwithstanding the above, the current situation demands serious thought about future priorities and the way we conduct in every sphere of life.
The manufacturing sectors will have to re-think and re-design their entire supply chain. Over-dependency on a country or geography for manufacturing and raw material supply is not sustainable. The service industry, especially the global offshoring and outsourcing business must get back to the drawing board and figure out the most appropriate model. The businesses have, so far, not envisaged a scenario where multiple countries and continents might be handicapped by an epidemic at the same time and the future Business Continuity plans must factor in scenarios like this. Prolonged locked down of businesses will hurt the employees and consumers as there could be skill erosion and consumer behavior changes. For countries like India, bringing back migrant skilled workers to the work routine, a majority of them in small scale or unorganized sectors, is a herculean task, especially after the ordeal they had to go through in the aftermath of lock down announcement when a majority of them were compelled to leave the urban areas for their native villages. The airlines, the hospitality industry, tourism, restaurants, pubs, entertainment sectors like movie theaters and sports will all have to consider the consumer behavior changes and new business models that will help them thrive.
During this crisis, the key enabler that helped businesses across the globe stay afloat was virtualization facilitated by digital technologies. The technology made it possible for employees to work remotely from home, businesses to maintain their connect with customers and provide essential services, Governments to effectively communicate to citizens during the lock-down situation and also helped health workers and law enforcement teams, with their work and co-ordination. Furthermore, data science and related technologies like AI/ML were extensively used by Government and health organizations to compute models from vast amount of disperse data for effectively combating the pandemic. My sense is that post Covid-19 there will be an accelerated pace in the adoption of digital technologies around the Globe. For many fence sitters, irrespective of industry, size and scale of their business, there cannot be a better reason and business case to bring these questions back to the decision table. Many notions of the past have been quelled with, the often-heard roadblocks like "Can these jobs/works be performed from home/remotely? How do I deal with critical data and data privacy issues when work is done more and more virtually?" These questions were relevant then, are now and will be even more so tomorrow, but the difference is there is a compelling reason now to find solutions to these problems and figure out compensating controls than treating it as a roadblock or excuse. The demand for online content and services be it gaming, sports, movies, education will see a huge surge as people change their behavior and resort to the comfort of their homes more than before.
From a Government standpoint, the pandemic crisis is a rude awakening. The health infrastructure and the preparedness to deal with a crisis of this magnitude have never been tested to this extent in the recent past and the results are worrisome and calls for radical changes. A complete rethinking of every aspect ranging from the roles & responsibilities of the Federal-state Government to strike the right balance of decentralization, policies, healthcare infrastructure, qualified health workers, response plans, investment priorities must be done on a priority basis. I hate to call this a war, but this is a war-like situation and the only difference is that the whole world is fighting a common enemy, an invisible virus. The point is, we must heed the alarm bell and judiciously decide where the Government resources must go. Spending billions of dollars on traditional military assets like submarines and fighter planes versus spending a portion of those billions on healthcare and related infrastructure to combat a pandemic situation like this, must be a key decision point in front of every Government around the world. We have seen the on-ground reality from the most advanced nations to the poor countries in the world and the preparedness is far from adequate. Beyond the health infrastructure, Govt must re-think about urban planning, the density of population in urban areas, building codes, the contingency plans and response mechanisms, agriculture sector, the public distribution systems, essential services and commodities.
This is a crisis that cannot be compared to financial crisis of 2008 for the simple reason that this is a human crisis first and economic crisis second. This makes it very difficult to understand the long-term impact and magnitude and the solution to this requires very fundamental changes to everything that we are used to under the ‘current normal’. To my mind, while it is important to bring the crisis under control, it is equally important to start thinking about future opportunities in the context of this human crisis. This is true for all of us as individuals - our purpose, our conduct, our career, our health, Governments around the world and businesses.
Sunil Cherian Korah
www.cherianz.com