EMERGENCE OF NEW BUSINESSES POST COVID ERA

By Bhaskar Majumdar, Head – Corporate Affairs, Communication & Digital media, Egis India

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The global COVID 19 pandemic will definitely change the way the world functions, across verticals, industries and businesses. There will be a ‘new normal’ that would emerge.

Technology and the telecom sector, particularly, will witness far reaching impacts in 2020 and beyond. However, experts opine that most of the implications will be rather short term. Data from the department of telecommunications showed that between March 22 and March 28, Indians consumed an average of 307,963 TB or 307 petabytes (PB) of data. India’s internet consumption rose by 13% since the nationwide lockdown was put in place to check the spread of Covid-19, according to telecom ministry data that showed Indians consumed 308 petabytes (PB) or 308,000 terabytes (TB) of data daily on an average for the week beginning March 22. According to the department of telecom, which collated reports from service providers, the daily average consumption in this period was 9% higher than 282PB data used on March 21 (the day the janta curfew was announced) and 13% more than March 19, when consumption was 270 PB.

On April 15th 2020, in the midst of the COVID crisis, the Government launched the Aarogya Setu application to track COVID-19 cases. This singularly indicates the utility of smartphones during and post the COVID era.

Online Products & Services Will Rule The World

However, in the longer term, the market outlook seems to be pretty positive, as reliable connectivity becomes a critical necessity. As the post COVID 19 world emerges, millions of the populace worldwide would already be comfortable with digital tools, services and platforms.

The digital and internet economy will become more proliferated. Online based products and services companies will see demand from new areas, hitherto non-existent. Similarly, online streaming, online grocery services, Ed-tech and Online Education along with firms involved with online-skill development, upskilling and reskilling will witness rapid uptick. All schools and colleges during the on-going lockdown has taken the digital route to reach out to their students for daily classes. Classes now have become virtual and this has also increased the demand for laptops, tablets as well as smartphones.

Digital Is Not Fancy, Its Necessity

Coronavirus crisis has accelerated our transition to a digital future, more digital products, more virtual, interactive and immersive modes of communication has emerged. Further, simple and digital customer experiences, which go right the first time at lower cost, have become essential for continued growth—and in some industries, even for survival. It is now necessary for companies to traverse years in a span of months – to deliver digital experiences that are easy, intuitive and engaging. As business landscapes are shaking up, businesses need to develop plans that not only strengthens their value proposition, but also provide easy, convenient sales and setup; and wring out bad costs. Businesses are quickly adapting to a digital world and this is proving to be a big problem for those of us who weren’t already prepared with devices and connections. Getting a new Internet connection is a challenging prospect right now, and mobile connections are the only way for many people to stay online and work.

As per a study by McKinsey, even in the pre-COVID 19 period, a whopping 92% of companies felt that their business ecosystems need to be adaptive, to keep pace with rapid digitisation. Despite blitzkrieg progress and technological innovations and advancements that businesses have witnessed over the years, the pandemic has shown how vulnerable we still are.

Data Will Be More Important Than Ever Before

Digitisation have also integrated ecosystems in hitherto unheard of ways. Like for example, as a response to the COVID 19 crisis, some banks and financial institutions, in order to serve their customers better, has integrated medical-care advice, doctor-appointment services, and automotive services for their customers. As these processes get more and more normalised once protocols and standards fall in place, data will be more important to businesses than ever before.

We have seen that earlier, on an average, a family used to have one laptop and individual mobile phones as per the number of family members. In the post COVID era, we may see a minimum of two laptops or tablets and spare smartphones in all houses for better and streamlined connectivity and seamless usage.

Low Price Smartphones To Gain Market

Smartphones in INR sub 15,000 category may see a huge growth in demand over the coming years. Besides the earlier requirements like Camera and battery, RAM and memory will be key consideration criteria for the buyers in coming days. Also, a possibility of increase in sales of refurbished handsets too and the major customer will be school students, teachers, housewife’s and senior citizens etc. Sale of refurbished mobile phones are expected to rise post lockdown as people will be more cautious about spending money.

We are aware that electronic devices especially mobile phones, laptops, tablets, etc are mission critical to the functioning of emergency services, hospitals, doctors, healthcare workers, law enforcement agencies, schools, colleges, governments’ offices, and governments’ offices, alike.

With the current situation, we do not know when the crisis will end. Nor do we know exactly when recovery will come or things will become normal. Organisations will need to adapt a more digitally future forward approach to effectively sail through the tide and ensure a brighter future.

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About Author

Bhaskar Majumdar is Head – Corporate Affairs, Communication & Digital media at Egis India.
Prior joining to Egis India, Bhaskar was working with Adfactors PR as Senior Group head for 9 years. He has more than 22 years of communication consulting experience in the field of corporate affairs, strategic communications, crisis communication & strategic brand building. He has worked with Reliance Industries as General Manager, Corporate Communications and ESPN Star Sports as Manager Corporate Communication.