The Day After Tomorrow

Choice of this title is not a coincidence with the famous Hollywood movie title. But more of a conscious choice to imagine how a new world order will emerge post the pandemic that is sweeping the world - Something as scary and impactful as the one portrayed in the movie. This is an attempt to imagine how the world will evolve and change once the dust settles - who will be left standing and how we humans will operate in a post CoVID era. Please share your thoughts as comments in the end.

1. The new norm: This is not the end of viruses or CoVID19 even. Going by the timeline of 18 months for vaccine development, there are more waves expected. So there is possibility of more intermittent shutdowns, work from home and social distancing etc. Accept it as a new norm atleast till 2021-22. Worst case, is there a relapse happening? (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-reinfection-explainer/explainer-coronavirus-reappears-in-discharged-patients-raising-questions-in-containment-fight-idUSKCN20M124)
2. Economy - One maybe able to survive while jumping out of a bus while it is slowing down but imagine being thrown out of a bus which comes to an abrupt halt. That is the state of the world economy now. So the question is where will the numbers stack up - Zero, crest or trough? Question is, Have we learnt anything from the past to prepare for such a slowdown? Atleast the initial reactions by the world leaders point in that direction. But honestly it is an evolving situation and one can expect more doses of stimuli across nations.
3. Economic Recovery - Ripple impact and domino effect of the slow down is going to be terrible. Millions of job losses, poverty and shutdowns are going to the norm for this year. What will be interesting will be to see how organizations and countries react and bounce back. It will be a function of how well the current situation is handled. With a big screw up in the world's largest economy USA, it will be unwise to not prepare for the long battle. The mantra will be how well one can adapt and change to the new world norm than expecting to go back to old self. The saying Change is the only constant has never been more true than now.

• Travel Industry: This sector may see the biggest and most sweeping changes of all. The way people travel, time for travel, costs for travel everything may get revamped. Long screening at ports of entry and exit, at province borders could become the new reality. Intermittent Social distancing could lead to large scale disruptions, low utilization (load factor) in industries like Airlines leading to disproportionate cost increase unlike the drop in fares as expected by many. Fear of quarantine and deportation may make people averse to travel unless essential. What would be interesting to see is if it will be Business travel or Tourist/Personal travel that will lead the revival. In future atleast in the short term I wouldn't be surprised if we are asked to take digital passes to move from one province to a nearby one.
• Tourism industry: Along with travel this industry will see the second biggest impact. Many countries which are heavily dependent on tourism like Greece, Thailand etc. will struggles to revive their GDPs. At the same time the countries will turn to domestic travelers to fill in some of this vacuum. A lot of stakeholders- Hotels, Restaurants, Tour guides, travel agencies (players who cannot go online) , will need to reinvent their model. Interesting ideas are already floating around - like the unlimited travel passes by some airlines (Bamboo Airlines) and hotel chains which gives you any number of travel or stay options within a prescribed time period, all for a fixed fare. This will help bring in much needed liquidity and may help ring in revenues via ancillary services.
• Medical Industry/Sector: In the short run (2-3) years I think the industry will see larger investments, better pay and even large scale enrollment from youngsters in colleges. But after a few years the enthusiasm could wane off once the virus comes under control. Having said that given the scale of impact caused by the virus, it could throw open some innovations and landmark changes in the way of functioning of the sector especially when it comes to primary health care, development of medicines and vaccines to name a few. On the other hand there is also the risk of rushing the vaccines to humans without substantial tests by some countries. This may lead to newer medical challenges for humans (Remember the movie World War Z)
• E-commerce and Digital money: It is not the CTOs, CEO,the digital evangelists or the national leaders who would be known as ushering in the digital era to masses. But the infamous credit will go to CoVid. Interesting thing to watch out for is how various organizations and countries go on from here to utilize this surge in digital usage to other programs like disbursement of public benefits like money transfers schemes and other govt services, digital medicine and prescription etc. (https://www.ekathimerini.com/251529/article/ekathimerini/comment/health-crisis-prompts-digital-strides-in-greece) . Whoever can rider the wave will emerge stronger out of this.
• Of course there are scores of other industries which will be impacted with the disruption of demand, production. exports, imports. There could be large scale liquidity crunch and insolvency cases also across the globe.

4. End of privacy: So many stories of how big data analysis is helping the fight against Covid is floating around. Recently I read an article about a company in the states that manufactures digital thermometers which are hooked to the web. This enabled the organization to track temperature of millions of people across various counties and states. Imagine the possibility to track the spike in fever rates and even use modelling to predict the next hot spot. This throws open a new ammo in the fight against not just covid but even against the common flu. Many Govts across the globe (Singapore, Israel) are using mobile tracking to track and even enforce social isolation/home quarantine measures. What is scary though is the misuse of technology to track their citizens or even worse to suppress voice of its people and opposition. After all it is data and not votes that decides the next presidents and Prime Ministers across the globe these days (Remember Cambridge Analytica!)

5. Culture and impact on Covid: It is really interesting to see how various nations and citizens react and handle this delicate situation. It is not surprising that a country that values and promulgates Individual freedom and choice above anything else like the USA erupting in protest against the lock down. Leaving aside Trump, it was bound to happen given the way the people in US has been conditioned over decades elevating freedom of choice and independence as the corner stones of their cultural values. At the same time countries in Asia and ASEAN(Singapore, South Korea, VN) have seen people being more malleable and receptive to the lock down rules. But the question is how long can the poorer nations manage such a lock down?

6. Maslow's Hierarchy: It would be interesting for the social scientist to watch how the Maslow's hierarchy/triangle of Food, Clothing and Shelter (Roti, Kapda, Makan) overpowers and influences the societies under these stressful situation. Already we see so many news of people having scant regards of the social distancing norms and even getting into fist fights when it comes to distribution of food items in Africa and Asia. Can the law stand the test of time or will it get reframed as Larger societal safety first then food, clothing and shelter? (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/food-tunisians-struggle-coronavirus-lockdown-200411142312791.html)

7. Jobs: Waking up in the morning and going to a 9-7 job has been the norm for many across the globe. In the new scenario where one may be in the watch out for a virus that may prop up any time anywhere in the globe, people will find out new ways to work. Working from office may still be the sought after norm as humans have realized the importance of a rhythm and the need to get out of home and having physical contact with colleagues. At the same time there will be an equally large set of employees and employers who would have realized the advantages of working from home - savings in real estate rental, usage of personal laptops and devices, travel allowance savings etc. This is bound to create a new order of working which will be actively pursued across the capitalists economy across the globe to drive down operational costs. Wouldn't be surprised if the organizations make the best of these costs advantages.

8. Supply chain and logistics - Will see a massive disruption in the short term thanks to multiple lock downs across nations. The way order is taken and fulfilled will see a large fillip by automation which is bound to trigger new ideas and ways of working across the industry. Tasks which were previously considered difficult to do without direct human interaction has been proved otherwise now. Retail order capturing in an FMCG industry, to order fulfillment in a B2C eCommerce world without direct human interaction will be re-looked in the new context by organizations. Wouldn't be surprised if drones, AI and Robots integration into Supply Chain is fast tracked in a post CoVid world.

9. Trust on people: Atleast in the short term xenophobia, mistrust among people and cultures, protectionism and nationalism is bound to rise. Wouldn't be surprised to see a rise in cases of racism against Chinese and Asian ethnic people in the developed counties. Counties and organization will reevaluate the strategies of outsourcing production and services to save costs - especially to China. And I think it is a only a matter of time before we see the Trump wall come up! At the same time it is ironic to see that China is emerging as a global supplier of medical equipment and material in this second phase of the pandemic!

10. Prepared for the future: That is the larger question that one needs to ask. How prepared will we be for another such event. Humans don't seem to learn from any of the previous pandemics like Spanish Flu, Hong Kong Flu or the SARS outbreak. I wouldn't mind betting on the fact that a large scale extinction level event in the future would be driven by a terrorist carrying a virus and not a nuclear bomb - now that they have scene how a virus can bring the mighty nations to its knees! That, if you ask me is the scariest challenge the Gen C (born from 2020) are going to face!