Life After Covid 19

At the moment the world feels like it’s been tipped upside down and shaken about a bit for good measure. The Covid 19 virus outbreak has had a huge impact on all aspects of daily life and will continue to do so long after the virus itself has become inactive. Many countries still have not yet seen the peak of the virus so we inevitably still have worse to come.

The measures deployed to help fight the spread of the virus are resulting in huge changes in behaviour, massive economic impacts and much more, because of the length of the measures new habits are likely to be formed, it takes only 6 weeks to form a new habit and we will have been in this for much longer by the time this is over. It may seem premature to ask, but I keep finding myself wondering what could the world look like coming out of this and how will it impact business?

Viral outbreaks are not new. Looking at analysis of the past 100 years shows us that we have seen many outbreaks over that period. As the world becomes ever more urbanised with dense populations of people, more connected and moving people and materials around globally on a daily basis with ever increasing ease. There are many possibilities for an outbreak to spread further and faster than previous incidents.

Global travel and trade led to rapid propagation of the virus around the world. As we have seen there is only so much that can be done with medicine to "cure" such outbreaks. The pace of drug development being far slower than the rate of development of the disease. The emphasis instead being on treatment of symptoms and containment.

Scenes around the world now are like from a movie, post apocalyptic. With many cities quiet, airports empty, planes grounded and shops and restaurants closed. There clearly have been many immediate negative business consequences that will continue to reverberate after the virus has passed.

However there have also been many obvious "positive" consequences, some even bringing opportunities to business sectors such as video conferencing, food retail and of course toilet paper manufacturing! Whilst the situation at present may feel desperate especially looking at global stock market performance we can also take some reassurance from history that this will pass, there will not be total societal and economic Armageddon and economies will eventually recover.

Below are some thoughts from me on how this might impact us in the future, not intended to be exhaustive and very much only based on my own personal areas of knowledge:

Air Quality and Public Health

I have deliberately put this first as it is a subject close to my heart. There is a correlation between Covid 19 death rate and underlying health issues and in particular respiratory problems. An event like this brings the benefits of good public health into focus.

Following this pandemic will authorities implement tougher clean air policies to help improve the underlying health of their populations, particularly in heavily polluted cities? Opportunities should exist for technology to clean industrial exhausts and of course in electrification to remove combustion engines from our cities. The public is gaining a good understanding of the benefits of clean air and the underlying health challenges that poor air quality can bring. Technology involved in improving air quality will continue to be a key focus.

Global Supply Chains

An over reliance on long global supply chains and a lack of strategic manufacturing capacity for many key materials seems to have caught many countries out. Whilst Governments reassured the public that they should not be panic buying food and toilet paper because there is a plentiful supply, somewhat ironically there have been calls for emergency manufacturing of respirators and some other key equipment and this has affected countries across the world. There are some basic equipment needs that could be modelled for a number of public health issues and it’s vital that countries model their supply requirements and don’t simply rely on global supply. Because when a crisis like this hits domestic supply will be prioritised.

In industry the challenges of long supply chains have also been brought sharply into focus, before the virus itself caused Europe and the USA to be shut down industry felt the impact of reduced output in Asia of key components needed for products ranging from consumer electronics to cars.

Engineering and Manufacturing makes products that add value to the economy and are needed to fight situations such as this, whether that be the medical gowns and face masks, high tech ventilation equipment or ambulances and delivery vehicles. Key strategic manufacturing capacity is required of key materials and equipment to ensure that countries are well prepared and can equip themselves in the event of an emergency. To build more resilience in supply chains and to ensure that there is strategic manufacturing capability for key items. The key shortage components for ventilator production seem to have been various electronics parts, electric motors and electromagnetic solenoid valves.

Online Retail, Home Delivery and Logistics

An unmistakable winner from this crisis have been online retailers of almost anything and home delivery logistics operations. If the high street was on its knees before this crisis started what will happen afterwards? Consumer behaviour is guaranteed to change as we have been doing this for long enough to develop new habits. We now have more people shopping online and starting to make this a habit than ever before. The most efficient online retail operations are also using a lot of automation in their warehousing / logistics operations, neatly linking to the next item;

 Automation and Robotics

As the saying goes, robots don't get tired, take breaks, fall ill or need to socially distance! Companies that make smart use of robotics and automation in key applications will be able to maintain production (where there is demand) or ramp back to full production more quickly even with social distancing measures required.

Outside of traditional manufacturing applications there are new applications being suggested for robotics solutions in health and social care and logistics to help with increased workloads. Investing in automation to improve business resilience as well as efficiency after this will be a key topic. I am expecting to see a boom in companies looking at how to add robotics and automation to their processes.

Remote Working

Many people have been sent to work from home. After much initial disruption this seems to have settled down into some good patterns to carry forwards.Video meetings are proving successful alternatives to face to face meetings eliminating the need for lengthy travelling and for some reason seem to run much more to time than face to face meetings often did.

Some positive benefits of social aspects the "water cooler" chat are being lost. But there has been a realisation that you can do more remotely than anyone thought possible. This could have some big impacts on how we organise ourselves in the future. I for one will be much keener to use video conferencing than go for international travel for instance. I expect many organisations to update their remote working policies after this and to also improve their organisational capability in this respect. Those responsible for business contingency planning will now have a new pandemic scenario to model for the future business interruption impact.

Organisations that have been able to move quickly to remote working have proven to be the most resilient and there are a number of business continuity situations where this would be appropriate in the future. However the experience is still clunky at best and whilst we have all learnt how to use Zoom and Teams much better than before there is still huge scope for improvement. Technology to improve home working and collaboration activity will be a strong area of focus. Ranging from software platforms to physical hardware to improve the immersivity and connectivity of the experience.

Other Long Term Big Ugly Challenges

This pandemic has brought a very real and painful situation home to many people and as mentioned before it was really only ever a matter of time before something like this happened. How many people had global viral pandemic in their business contingency planning before this happened?

The other major existential threats we are faced with deserve careful thought and planning. This of course would include climate change. What has climate change got to do with a virus pandemic? In some ways absolutely nothing and in others everything. 

Climate change has the potential to affect many more people, destroying lives and property through extreme weather events, desertification of large swathes of previously habitable land and rising sea levels. But it is often seen as abstract, not immediate and too easy to dismiss as someone else's problem. If the current pandemic has shown us anything it is that we need to be taking these long term problems into account and working to mitigate them earlier. 

But in addition, climate is linked to the development of different viruses and diseases. Unseasonably high or low temperatures can lead to longer active periods for various different pathogen and more opportunity for spread. It's easy to dismiss the current virus as the result of one country, again someone else's problem, but the sad reality is that this virus could have developed anywhere with the right conditions.

So these are my thoughts, I hope you got some value from this! I would be interested to hear your views as to how this has impacted you and how you might adapt or change your business after this has passed?