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During these trying times when the industry is heavily affected with economical issues came up the pandemic called Covid 19 and disrupted the industry completely. We at Industrial Automation Magazine have taken an initiative to bring the industry together and share their viewpoints so that others reading can take measures accordingly to have minimal damage.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in interviews are personal, not necessarily of the organisations represented.
Shraddha Danani has about 20+ years of industry experience. She has setup and run
successful businesses. Been successful in pulling off a startup or preparing a midsize
company for growth to guiding CEOs to working part of a large ecosystem in a technical role
with companies like Accenture and Tata Infotech: Currently transforming organisation from
founder led to professionally driven; Building organisational ecosystem, enabling
performance and predictability with Digital. She is also pursuing her Fellowship in ‘Platform
Ecosystem.’
As it appears from recent turn of events, most of the countries did not expect such massive
impact of coronavirus or Covid-19. The world, in present times being a global village, has
high movement of people across countries, which has facilitated the virus spread in more than
a hundred countries in less than three months. With such high inflow and outflow of global
travellers, many countries faced logistical challenges to contain the spread. By the time
protocols of screening and quarantine were put on place, hundreds of people were infected.
Additionally, the casual approach in the initial phase by infected people, due to lack of
understanding on disease fatality, has contributed to the severity. In a matter of weeks the
virus spread was alarmingly high. A disease spread of this scale is unprecedented and many
countries do not have response protocol in place to handle it.
The virus outbreak has happed at a very crucial time of the year, India’s financial year end.
Though companies are putting up brave front by fully exploiting BCPs; work efficiencies of
many industries have dropped. Financial year closing warrants highest amount of
coordination, meetings and collaboration for task closures, bill closures, invoice processing,
and order closures. Being in lock down at this point of time, has impacted many professionals
and industries at large. If the financial year end date is moved forward by few weeks, many
organisations will be able to soften the immediate effects of Covid-19 on the business. At the
same-time, some of the cloud based platforms operating in entertainment, video
conferencing, education, ecommerce space have seen sharp rise in the business growth.
Medium term implications of this outbreak, as it appears, will be on topline growth for
various industries like travel, hospitality, aviation and adjacent industries. Industries will take
some time to revive from the downward flow due to working capital constraints.
Whereas in the long term, technology penetration is likely to increase leading to new business
models or tech-assisted processing for vital functions reducing human dependencies. I can
see addition of ‘lockdown scenario’ coming in most of the Business Continuity Policies.
The proactive steps taken by the government of India to screen and quarantine international
travellers, close commercial establishments and prevent virus spread are commendable.
Looking at the population density of the country, the situation is in manageable frame so far.
Major shortfall our country faces is of healthcare infrastructure. The ratio of number of
hospital beds, ICU beds and ventilators to the population needs immediate attention. With
availability of good healthcare facility we will be better equipped to handle any mass health
scare in future. Second important area which needs national level improvement is availability
of healthcare professionals – doctors, hospital staff, paramedics and well trained social
workers with access to mobile medical technology at grass root level. There are various
indigenous innovations which can be implemented across the country through efficient
healthcare platform system making rapid response systems available in all parts of the
country to combat better.
We also need healthcare response codes system designed, implemented and well-
communicated to bring uniformity in communication and response to any disaster –
manmade or natural. This kind of systems provide clarity on direction, action plan, support
centres and volunteers in such crisis times.
The price tag of thermal scanners was discouraging for many who wanted to be alert and
contain disease spread in their work premises. Places like factories, construction sites,
railway stations, large commercial places, malls, etc., could put thermal scanners at good
preventive use.
Large number of executives, are accessing systems through various cloud based platforms
and managing work on the move, reducing dependency on fixed physical location called
office.
Companies are able to function even in lockdown state, though at reduced efficiency. Cloud
based collaboration platforms have opened up boundaries of organisations. The recent corona
outbreak has put this platforms based operability to test, and it appears to be quite successful.
This mode of operation will further evolve and rate of adoption is likely to increase. Moving
forward platformisation of various operations in business as well as personal level will
increase. Such cloud based platforms enable access to resources and play crucial role in
efficient operations. But we have to see how much it can replace office centric work approach
altogether.
What advancements in digital platform technologies have done to enablement of smooth
work from home for professionals across industries, automation in essential products
manufacturing leading to lights out state can make the world better prepared for any situation
in future. This level of automation eliminating or reducing human dependency in
manufacturing can keep the supply of essentials on, in such testing times.
One of the key learnings from Corona crisis is the need for a comprehensive business
continuity plan, with investment in strong IT infrastructure to enable secure access from
anywhere in various situations. Secondly, we need to bring in concept of ‘responsible self-
care’. When a person is unwell, s/he should rest and avoid meeting others at social or work or
entertainment avenues for betterment of self and others. This fundamental shift in attitude
could prevent various disease spreads.
#April 2020 Covid Special
To say the world is passing through trying times is to state the obvious. Also evident is the fact that for too long the world has been ignoring the warning signs of environmental degradation fuelled by human excesses and greed. But this is no time for ifs and buts, nor recrimination. Instead, the crisis should be used as an opportunity to make the required course correction to make the world a safer place for all living beings, and the ecological balance, restored.
Industrial Automation invited a cross section of industry leaders to offer their views and possible course of action as a way forward from this situation, even as governments across the world and the people are trying to make sense from the still evolving scenario.
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