COVID-19; A TALE OF CRUMBLING IT SECTOR
The ever-growing IT industry disintegrated in the first quarter of 2020 as the economy rammed into the infamous COVID-19. The pandemic initially came as a virtual revolution with offices, universities and even schools moving to a virtual platform. Although this boosted business for cloud computing and video conferencing yet the halt in trade and crashing global markets meant that the IT sector was bound to decay.
Thinking about why the IT industry is alongside others in this downward spiral? Let us crack it for you.
10 Reasons why the IT industry is indicating a downward trend.
- Decreasing IT budgets of firms is a leading reason why the IT industry is undergoing a slump. The firms both, private and public are reducing their future investment on modern technologies and reducing their cost to remain in business in the worst of times.
- Trade barriers and closed borders meant that the physical computing equipment would not be able to cross borders thus restricting the potential for growth of the IT sector. This disruption of the supply chain has mainly evolved because China is known to be the manufacturer of both the novel Corona Virus as well as the advanced IT products.
- The cancellation or discontinuation of already running IT services. Many firms due to their falling revenues have cancelled or paused their IT advancements.
- Missing in action are the silent investors looking to give seed investments to the modern and visionary Tech startups.
- The work from home culture is new to a lot of people. The setups, internet, electricity are quite a concern for the third world countries and thus the IT industry suffered from the backlash of the lockdown.
- The productivity of those affiliated with the IT industry has fallen due to the challenging times all of us are going through. Hence increasing the redundancies in firms.
- International conferences have been called off or postponed. Be it the Facebook’s F8 conference or the Apple’s WWDC conference they have been pushed ahead or called off. These conferences have proved to be providing a platform for sharing the latest tech of the era.
- Alternate government spending on healthcare and emergency treatment mean the budget for tech had to be shrunk. Every nation had very limited time to brace themselves for the coming pandemic.
- The predictions economists state that the economy will have a U shaped recovery as compared to a subtle V-shaped recovery so the prospective future investors have also abstained from investing in the IT industry.
- The fresh graduates along with ideas bring energy and resources to the industry whereas due to the pandemic the companies were downsizing so they had minimum employment opportunities.
The post-COVID world will never be the same, we have to adapt to the new normal. Also remember, this is not the end of the world. The world has united on this front to come up with a vaccine as soon as possible. Many drugs have reached their third phase of testing where the drug is being tested onto the different ethnicities to check for its reactiveness. There is still hope for a healthier world in the near future.
On a lighter note, let us discuss how the world for Tech geeks will change after all of this is over.
5 changes that the world will experience post-Corona
- Work from home? It has become a tried and tested system so many startups and adaptive entrepreneurs are considering shifting to a virtual/remote working space.
- The firms hit worst by the coronavirus would know they can’t put all their eggs in the same basket. So there’s an expected diversity in business.
- The digital infrastructure will be strengthened as the world had to haphazardly prepare for virtual meetings, now that the setups are in place it will mean the world will have a better equipped digital infrastructure.
- Telemedicine is an industry that has boomed in the times of corona, now the health sector will be equipped to virtually cater, diagnose and treat patients over the phone or the internet.
- In the third world countries where online shopping was not very much trusted, during the pandemic people were left with no choice to go out shopping so the future business environment is all about automation and digitization of the shopping experience.
Do you know what matters? Are you flexible to adapt to the new normal? “Post Corona” is just around the corner, are you ready?