Unprecedented Situations

What kind of a world are we living in? Probably, there is no precise answer to this question as it depends on your living locations, educational backgrounds, social connections, and so on. It means practically you can be a tribal or techie or just a common gender who carries some of these mentioned virtues in combination. What is necessary to understand is; irrespective of your traits, you are bound to get affected whenever you are exposed to unprecedented scenarios. Since such situations occur occasionally, it requires unprecedented measures to face and get out of these crises. These unparalleled situations may vary by its nature. For example, the 2000 Dot Com failure was a tech unusual scenario whereas, 2008 was a humongous global financial crisis and what we are experiencing now is probably the most horrifying crisis we humans have ever seen, as Covid-19 pandemic. We could sustain and come out of past scenarios because they were more materialistic. However, the current crisis we are in is different (because it is life-threatening) hence it requires unprecedented measures to be taken.

What are these unprecedented measures in the context of the Covid-19 scenario? These are the measures that we never thought of adopting in usual times. Be it a business, a job, or just common living, we are now taking so many different initiatives and approaches that were considered unusual and unorthodox in past times. Let’s dive into each of such areas and understand them in detail.

Unprecedented measures are taken to run businesses:

Because of this global pandemic, we see various industries changing their modus of Operandi to sustain and accelerate their businesses. In the below section, I am describing some of these industries as an example:

• Hospitality: One of the most severely impacted industries, now seeing zero footprints of customers because of Covid-19 fear and government mandates. It does require significant changes in their operations while they resume in near time. At many places, it is already started but if we anticipate for future, we see that hotels will be more aware of their guest details, especially their health. Hotel chains might collaborate with fitness-trackers and wearables with joint offerings for customers. Governments and businesses could retain a specified section of hotels as premium quarantine centers for a nominal yearly fee.
• Telecom & Broadband: The telecom and broadband service providers have a vital role to play in navigating and recovering from this pandemic. Most of us are working from home, every business requires a digital presence to resume operations, virtual classrooms have replaced regular schools, places of worship and courts have adopted online collaboration tools to continue working and this list goes on. In such a situation, the load on infrastructure can be immense and oddly get distributed. To ensure quality service across areas, telecom companies may switch to differential pricing. In the future, an internet connection in areas with high population density may attract a higher unit rate as compared to areas with lower population density. For that matter, even ISPs could switch to metered connections charging subscribers as per usage.
• Entertainment: Consider this for a thought experiment! Post this crisis, would you still be comfortable with going into a stadium with thirty thousand spectators or going for a movie in a theater? How long before you get over the fear of touching unknown surfaces and crowded places? It would be a very long time, in my opinion. Such a behavior change would force organizers of live events to rethink their strategies. The EPLs and the IPLs of the world may go for matches without a live audience. However, using advanced technology, the viewing experience, dynamics, and economics of live events could change forever. For example, the cheers and noise from home could be streamed live inside the stadiums and the audience would enjoy the match using virtual reality.
• Smart Cities and Urban Planning: The fear of crowded places and touching surfaces would be at play in urban planning as well. Cities across the world would attempt at devising less crowded and hassle-free methods of transportation. For that matter, Transport for London (TFL) has already signed up to use IoT sensors and analytics to ensure that only a certain number of passengers are traveling in a bus, a coach, or a tube. They might even move beyond the ‘touch & pay’ of oyster cards to facial recognition systems of payments where the train fare from Heathrow to Paddington is paid using a face ID.
• Retail/Ecommerce: The majority of retailers are collaborating with smaller cafes or neighborhood shops so that customers do not have to walk longer for essentials, and one store does not get crowded. Alternatively, such retailers may even collaborate with workplaces to encourage employees to shop on weekdays so that stores are not crowded on weekends like they are now. Additionally, there has been a drastic change in the consumer’s mindset too. Now in urban and villages too, people are asking to deliver at doorsteps, and this is a paradigm shift in business and consumer behavior.

Unprecedented measures are taken to continue employment:

• Before Covid-19, working from home was an occasional luxury. Very few companies and individuals practiced effective Work from Home (WFH) policies. The way most enterprises responded to Covid-19 and adapted remote workforce models without a huge impact on work – as it appears at least for now – is almost an act of magic. The longevity of lockdown across the world has certainly created a cultural shift among the workforce. Here are some scenarios to look for post-Covid.
• As WFH gains broader acceptance, companies will suddenly have a bigger choice of human resources. Distance or borders are not constraints any longer.
• Most companies will optimize their workforce and will look for a part-time or on-demand workforce.
• Travel constraints and government regulations will restrict workforce migration. This will have a big impact on working hours and work cultures.
• Physical presence and “human touch” will not be priorities any longer. This will pave way for further automation and coexistence between humans and machines – another new normal theme!

Most importantly, a common living hood has become isolation residual, house arrest, and mask covered faces. This is not something that was even thought of being in such a world but trusts me, this has become a new normal. In the future too, this would become a part of our lifestyle. Coming to the present-day unprecedented situation, there isn’t a single news channel you can watch today without looking at messages to “flatten the curve” or “break the chain”! On the other hand, Covid-19 has flattened many curves and broken many chains already. There will be many more curves that will be impacted dramatically as we enter the post – Covid recovery zone.

By Ishika Gupta