World post COVID-19

Today starts the 21 day full lockdown in India to fight the Coronavirus epidemic! Something like this was unimaginable just a few days back. But it's happening now and it's going to be like this for some time - may be weeks, may be months - hard to tell. When we come out of it, the world is definitely going to be very different from the one we know.

A lot of small businesses are going to die in this process. As the economy is going through a severe depression and as it would start it's recovery,  new businesses will start picking up. It'll be interesting to think about the potential opportunities in the world post recovery. Whoever gets it right would be generously rewarded, I am sure.

Here's my take on what are likely to be a few of the major changes we'll see in the post COVID-19 world:

1. Global delivery models will be seen with caution. A lot of businesses in the US and Europe are dependent on India and other offshore locations for managing their IT systems including the most business critical ones with severe business implications if they go down. Similarly, a lot of companies manufacture from China and a few other locations in Asia. The supply chains are complex and multi-country. A situation like now where every country is locking its borders and shutting down work places can bring businesses to standstill even if they are not headquartered or selling in an affected country. Also, for any country dependence on external factors for their own basic and essential services can be a huge risk when it is itself under lock down. One would like to have things in own control at times like these, rather than adding uncertainty to an already stressful situation.
2. Working from home will become the norm. A lot of companies have always talked about it, but dragged their feet when it came to implementing work-from-home for all their employees, even if was feasible for many of their roles. IT services companies, for example, could do it for many of their teams, but refrained even when it was doable because of considerations/reasons like complexity of management, network security, client data protection, poor trust on Indian employees, pleasing clients, old-style leadership, poor/slow/non-standard internet accesses at homes until recently, lot of already built infrastructure due to poor foresight, or plain belief that people sitting together are the most efficient and productive. While I do believe that some of these reasons are genuine, and that working from home is not the most efficient way of working, it seems like it will have to be given a higher share in future because of what the world is seeing now. The extent of the virus outbreak took everyone by surprise, businesses were hardly prepared with a proper work-from-home model. Future delivery models will therefore look more closely at companies' capabilities and preparedness in this regard.
3. Switch to robotics and fully automated operations. In spite of heavily leveraging technology in many of the new-age businesses like commutation, e-commerce, banking, etc., I realized now that they all are still heavily labor intensive. Machines and internet have either upgraded parts of their operations or enabled these businesses to start with, but a lot of activities are still done by humans. When there's an epidemic, if customers are able to get their basic needs from home, it makes the lock down meaningful and also keeps them less exposed to risk. But if humans have to run around to deliver these, we'll end up needing a huge army of people exposing themselves for the comfort of the rest. It therefore makes sense that companies immediately ramp up the testing and adoption of technologies like drones for delivery, fully automated warehouses, automated cars/trucks, and so on, which have so far been huge areas of research, yet have not been perfected and adopted because of one prime reason - jobs. But as businesses would crumble in the next few months in spite of huge demand but inability to supply or deliver, it will become imperative for companies to rethink technology investments for the future.
4. Countries have to either invest in massive skill building or have to breakdown under the tremendous pressure due to unemployment. As businesses rethink their supply chains and degree of labor-intensiveness, jobs are going to be lost in billions around the world. Labor arbitrage and large young population are no longer going to be competitive advantages. Especially in India, people need to get out of their comfort zones and get hands-on with basic engineering skills. It's an irony that we perhaps have one of the largest number of engineers in the world, but most of them are only engineers by degree and can hardly do basic stuff even in their areas of specialization. The quality of our tech workforce is pathetic on an average. Our ability to conduct research in an area and generate outcomes to help our masses is severely limited and under-invested. It's a shame we brag all we can, but in times of crisis we need to again look at western countries to come up with solutions. Mr. Modi would never have the confidence that Mr. Trump has in their respective countries' ability to come up with a vaccine for COVID-19, for example. Our world-class educational and research institutes are not even in a position to catch up with the global best. The same is true for many other countries like ours. In the new world, skill-building will not be optional. We won't be able to manage 7-8% GDP growth and brag about being one of the fastest growing economies, with half our population only capable of lifting weights, and most of the other half earning better due to labor arbitrage, though doing mediocre work. We say we have a lot of brain power, but sadly most of it is wasted because of the absence of platforms to nurture them.
5. Healthcare infrastructure and services need massive upgrade. Even in normal times, we are under-invested in healthcare and have far from sufficient medical staff. The current epidemic has exposed the weaknesses of even the developed world in this. We in India may fall into the common trap that if they are not well equipped, we are justified in being where we are with the 1.3bn population - which is the most stupid argument we often make to explain our backwardness to ourselves. Sadly we don't value human life enough, but this has to change if India were to be a leader in the new world order. And in fact, this is true for every country on this planet, as we now understand where we collectively and individually stand. It also exposes a huge business domain as severely under-represented in the economy. There is scope of millions of jobs here, but lack of the right policy framework to make it happen. I am optimistic that all countries will realize this soon, as it's already too late.

What are your thoughts on the how the future would look like?