The Different World Order - In aftermath of COVID-19 (The New Normal)

It has been more than 4 months that COVID-19 pandemic has taken the world to ransom with its highly infectious nature. Economic  Slowdown is at it peak, resources are shrinking, people are locked in their homes and the entire world dynamics has changed. Its already clear that life will not return to normal soon. In fact, there has already been some significant and fundamental changes in the world and many of these will become permanent.

 

 In this scenario, the entire world is being forced to rethink its strategy on the work environment of government, social work, corporate industry, films, arts, music industry as well as oveall lifestyle of common citizens in terms of market accessibility, education and relationship with each other.

  

Let's discuss about the changing scenario in the aftermath of Corona Virus Pandemic:

1. Supply chain needs to be redefined. As we are witnessing that in view of lock-down, closed boundaries and fear of infection, supply chain of items is becoming more and more local than global. Rather than depending on other countries for specific products, we now have to think of manufacturing all such products within the local range.  Companies will be loathe to trust all the supply from one foreign country . Companies will look to diversify their suppliers and to favor local suppliers, even at higher costs.

2. Retailers with physical stores will compete with online shops. So both will have to co-exist with equal sharing. We are being forced back to shop from local stores in our vicinity and online shopping has come to a major halt. The divide between online shopping and local shopping has reduced. Even large companies now prefer to supply their items to local stores rather than supply online which requires delivery to homes. Although online shopping will bounce back if situation improves but the role of the “shop nearby”  is gaining significance.

3. People have become more health conscious and this will continue. To lead a healthy life stlye, exercise, meditation, yoga etc. People are reviewing their food intake, quality & quantity of food, body immunity etc. People are practicing to live life with discipline with no dependency on doctors except critical illness. In fact, People are understanding the value of their life and are afraid to loose it.

4. People are pursuing their hobbies and understanding that you don’t really need to go out to a mall, restaurants, shopping complex to chill out. People are understanding how important family is and what roles they were really missing out till date and this will continue. People are understanding and enjoying family togetherness, being reminded of lost family values etc.

5. Telephone, TV & Internet have become more and more important friends and a lifeline. Online education and certification will find new high.

6. There will be slowdown in automobile industry as there will be more Work From Home/ Work From Anywhere/ Anytime scenario and organizations shall be providing office cabs with social distancing norms due to less people required to visit offices. Environment pollution will also be controlled if there is less out-pour of people on streets and offices/public places. 

7. E-offices will replace normal office working and will facilitate working from anywhere and anytime. This will also result in transparency of work, save time as all resources are available at a centralized place for reference and help in efficient tracking of lapses in work culture like meeting target dates/time.

8. There will be more jobs in IT industry as taking lesson from the lock-down, more and more agencies are moving towards e-offices and this will require more IT setups, cloud storage, cloud computing and hence requirement of resources to maintain/troubleshoot these set up from anywhere and anyplace.

9. People are becoming more self dependent and are being trained to do household chores themselves rather than being dependent on maids, household help etc. When people will work from convenience of their homes, they can manage all these accordingly.

10. Air travel, trail travel, journeys for professional purpose will also reduce. Most of these things can be done with live sessions using video-conference tools.There will be few overseas visit for attending meetings, seminars, workshops and all these will save money & time.

 11. All strata of society living in villages, remote areas will become aware to use IT tools as a compulsion to keep in pace with the changing scenario where things will become more IT centric. There will be more Internet and IT connectivity even to remote area and governments will invest in it.

12. Jobs will be available at any location due to more dependency on IT Infrastructure. Private as well as Government jobs will be available at all places. Jobs will be task based rather than hour based. 

13. Loss of trust will take time to recover. How long will it take before folks are comfortable going on a cruise again? Or when will homeowners feel comfortable letting a stranger into their house to rent it for a weekend? How long before countries with high infection rate will be deemed clear so their citizens can come visiting as tourists again? It will take some time. My guess is 2 years or more.

14. Home-bias will increase dramatically as countries will prefer local people over manpower from other countries. This will lead to more mental peace for people as they can balance between professional and personal life effectively residing in own country and staying together or nearby.

15. Healthcare for all will become a more standard view. Health care industry will  have to improve its efficiency and effectiveness and remote health care support will be available less load on hospitals and avoiding ques. More doctors, healthcare professionals will be available online.

16. Conventional Industries like handicrafts, hand looms, cotton, paper, packaging, small and medium scale industries etc. would restart and gain prominence in market to cope with reduced imports of cheap items from other countries. This will also create and boost self employment.

17. Insurance Sector will also boom as people are now aware of the consequences of a pandemic and how it can rob their entire savings in few weeks. Further now everyone will like their dependents to be financially stable if at all one looses his life due to such pandemic or medical issues.

18. Data Analytics business will gain significance. We are observing that Data & Statistics is helping us a long way in fighting Corona Virus spread and is providing trends on infection rate, morbidity rate, cure rate, forecasting of future trends on COVID-19 etc. So we will require more and more analysis and hence professionals in this industry will also be required.

19. Robotic, Artificial Intelligence Automated tools/gadgets and props will increase: Now as we are avoiding interaction with strangers and following social distancing, we shall require more automated tools for helping us out in our personal and professional task like cleaning rooms, utensils, helping out in learning and understanding things and also to partner us like human companions to avoid feeling lonely at times when there are less persons around us.

20. Maximum usage of Digital Currency and e-payments. In this crucial times when infection can be spread with currency notes, ATM machines etc., e-payments/digital payments have come to our rescue and this will continue in future as it is very convenient. However, IT Network Security needs to be strengthened which will require more IT Security professionals to manage the affairs.

21. Data Security and Privacy Laws need to be in place and followed strictly. Overall the entire world order will be changed and people will now be more engaged on laptops, ipads and IT applications and at the same time attending their personal life in close proximity. 

Closing Remarks: Life is not going to same as it used to in the pre-Covid19 era. Use of Masks, Sanitizers, Social distancing will prevail as people have lost faith due to varying nature of the disease. We have to understand that we need to live a totally different lifestyle because we can't deny from the possibility of recurrence of any such pandemic soon in future.

- Sameer