Tech Forecasts for Post China Virus World

Once the human mankind wins over the battle of China virus, the world might not be the same. Every disruption creates a new order that would characterized with its own unique idiosyncrasies. The crisis management of the COVID-19 caused by the Chinese virus will impart significant lessons in the future development and application of technology or otherwise. It would be thus be of some import to decode the probable shape of things and applications on the anvil.

Medical Robotics

The pandemics are likely to persist, though a major one might be one in a hundred year kind or so. The front-line workers especially doctors, nurses, para-medics etc. are in great danger of contracting the disease. The adverse effects on their health throwing them into a state of dysfunction will have a multiplicative effect in the negative externalities generated by the pandemic. Italy’s collapse of the medical system and its contribution to the rising fatalities is a testimony to the matter. Therefore, one would expect to see a rapid increase in the usage of robotics to assist doctors. Doctors might use robots to examine the patients and attend to their basic needs including the tests they have to conduct. Similarly, the use of robots in administering medicines etc. will considerably reduce the health danger of nurses so as to enable them to keep fit and healthy.

Remote medicine, diagnostics and monitoring

Alongside robotics, one could anticipate a rise in remote medicine. The doctors might be in their cabins and using remote tools adjust the medical doses or intravenous drips or examine the health of the patient through remote stethoscope of blood pressure meters or ECGs or similar other tools. This would be significant import to the health of the frontline medical staff. While remote medicine and diagnostics and monitoring are already in existence, one might observe an increasing returns of adoption in the months and years to come.

Tactile internet

With the discussion on 5G assuming greater importance, an accompanying revolution will be the tactile internet. It is described as a network integrating ultra-low latency with extremely high availability, reliability and security. It will enable operating virtual networks and control physical things virtually. The development of remote medicine and diagnostics along with usage of robots will necessitate a strong and secure technology network infrastructure that will be provided by the building of tactile internet. To the doctors working in remote places, this would be a great step to connect with the top experts. Conversely experts sitting in leading hospitals can perform remote surgeries and diagnostics thousands of miles away. Tactile internet besides having medical applications is also likely to have significant applications in non-medical sphere too.

Video Conferencing

Travel has its own externalities. Every pandemic in human mankind has spread through travel.  The invading armies and the global traders seeking to pursue new markets have been the super-spreaders besides being the messengers, mavens, salespersons of the disease. A by-product of the current scenario would be the increasing use of video conferencing tools. Tools like Zoom, Skype, and other video call software might be increasingly adopted to communicate across the rest of the world. There is increasing adoption of Zoom among other for a variety of purposes including education, conference call, remote meetings, and client or vendor meetings in the last few weeks. The world as it awakes from the aftereffects of the pandemic once accustomed to the same will increasingly use the same and might be a good input in reduction of costs by the firm. However, the degree of cost reduction might be a subject matter of debate.

Work From Home

The firms would now probably replace the massive buildings as showpiece for their assembly line. To many industries like IT and IT enabled, the large buildings might be replaced by relocation of workers to their home or shared spaces. This is an opportunity to many firms to reduce the rising real estate costs and quite a number of firms will seek to exploit this. Around 70-75% of the workforce might be asked to work from home or shared workspaces and might have to come to office only for select meetings let us say once a week or so. Only a small percentage of workforce might be essential to work from office space. This will in many ways radically transform the entire workspace and the work as we know it. There is an element of founder’s myopia at this stage and one has wait and observe how things shape up over the next three to five years.

Rise of E-Commerce Deliveries

Most people are now forced to adopt to buying online including food given the stay at home orders across many parts of the world. This might turn into a habit and thus create a new segment for the e-commerce firms. Many might expand their assortment to cater to the needs to the new segments. Similarly food delivery services might also see a jump. Many of the physical and unorganised grocery stores also might jump on the e-commerce bandwagon. It might not be too long before one starts to hear about a Swiggy or Zomato of groceries or even clothing stores. This would be an opportunity for many smaller players to reinvent themselves in the digital age rather than succumbing to the platform players like Amazon.

The above forecasts are just perhaps a tip of the iceberg that one can witness in the coming months and years. While there is always a risk for forecaster’s predictions to go haywire, there is greater risk of forecaster to have underestimated the gravity and quantum of change about to be unleashed thanks to an external supply shock accompanied by an induced demand shock.