Post-COVID Business and Infrastructure Reformations Across Sectors
An pandemic without a vaccine, lockdowns across geographies for several months, and worldwide economic fallout remain to be the three facts of the COVID-19 global crisis that has brought modern civilization face-to-face with a new reality. It has altered every aspect of human living, bringing a significant change in consumer behavior and mentality, generating a domino effect across sectors.
Time and circumstances, have pushed us to focus on the development of long-term solutions that can scale-up to the occasion, rather than making temporary adjustments to the business model. The COVID-19 pandemic while exposing some of the biggest flaws within the existing operational architecture, demands an overall evaluation and transformation that can only be facilitated through a scalable and innovative approach.
To survive and thrive in these uncertain times, businesses big and small alike are adjusting to meet the consumer demands, navigating the economic and operational challenges through rapid adoption and adaption of digital solutions. The world of business is shifting towards a more agile infrastructure with industry leaders paving the way and offering revamped solutions to meet the ‘new normalcy’ needs.
The Work-Culture
‘Limiting face-to-face contact with others is the best way to reduce the spread of coronavirus disease. Stay at least 6 feet apart from other people’ — Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention.
Being the first form of defense against the contagion, the onset of social distancing has led to the initiation of lockdowns closing down businesses, offices, and educational institutions. Even though lockdowns are gradually getting lifted in many countries, all offices are being mandated to follow the 6-feet-apart rule, which brings us to the work culture transformation.
Remote working has become the new normal for industries to execute organizational and business operations. The lockdown months acted as an unplanned trial run leading to the realization that remote working is a better alternative. At the moment CEOs of major corporations are rooting for a landmark shift in work culture.
The big names like Facebook, Morgan Stanley, Barclays have already made public their intention of gradually shifting their workforce to remote working. IT companies like Accenture, IBM, HashCash Consultants have not only implemented inhouse remote working but are offering digital solutions to revamp the infrastructure of any organization that wants to fortify their office operations remotely.
The need of the hour is to develop agile work strategies that help employees to survive financially at present and in the future as well. To that aim, companies and industries are working together to create opportunities and innovative solutions so that people can earn their living.
The Consumer Behavior
Quality, safety, and care for the consumers; it is the new mantra for companies offering products and services in the wake of COVID. The pandemic has brought forth an unprecedented change in consumer behavior where they are putting safety above all. Organizations are exploring and developing digital channels through which they can support business continuity and uphold high standards of customer service during and after the crisis.
The rapid change in consumer preference and buying habits has accelerated landmark changes in the operational structure of industries such as hospitality, retail, real estate, etc. There is a lot of scope for futuristic transformation, streamlining the legacy operations that will prove beneficial in the long run.
Digital commerce initiatives are developing at a fast pace, where retailers and the ones in the hospitality industry are creating new lines of service like low-contact hospitality experience, contactless food, and goods delivery, etc. The ones in the real estate business are resorting to virtual open houses and property tours as pandemic alternatives. To help them in this reformation are IT firms that are supporting businesses with scalable solutions and digital strategies to capture new market opportunities for uninterrupted growth.
Technology
Whether it is the battle against COVID-19 or emerging after suffering the initial setback from the pandemic, the adoption of new-age technologies is the ultimate sustainable solution. From government bodies to multinationals, everyone had to face their share of IT challenges during the pandemic and there will be no shortage of the same in the coming years as well.
Sectors irrespective of their offerings are highly motivated to eliminate all vulnerable aspects of the business that hindered their functionality during the lockdown. They want a system that can operate well even in dire situations, a goal that can be achieved by technology integration. Organizations and sectors need to up their tech game as well, accelerating the trial stage of new-age technologies like AI, blockchain, IoT, etc into adoption.
The pandemic has been a wake-up call, that the industries need to evolve fast leveraging the innovative solutions, that till now we have been progressing to adopt at a slow pace. Industries like banking, healthcare, and education need fast reformation and correcting the extensive flaws to build an infrastructure that can function seamlessly even in a pandemic or any other global crisis. Most within the industry is already striding rapidly towards that transition.
With questions getting raised against the fundamentals of doing business, industries need to act fast, collaborating with contemporaries for technology support or infrastructure building. It’s the only way to survive and thrive in this pandemic induced new reality.
