COVID-19: Boon or Bane For Indian Economy

The huge impact of coronavirus spread on the economy at large, including the loss of wage work to millions of those in the unorganised sector.

For India there is an opportunity. We all know that China is the global manufacturing hub for the world. But after this entire COVID-19 episode, entire world at least for some time will be cautious of trading with China for all the practical reasons. Although not an immediate significant shift will happen from China because shifting your manufacturing is obviously not an overnight job, but the speculations are ripe and if India manages to take in even 5% of that shift, it will be a huge opportunity for us.

The reason for the strong relationship between industrialisation and economic development is that the manufacturing sector is the driver of productivity growth. This, in turn, is the lifeblood of technological development. The growth of manufacturing machinery output, and technological improvements in that machinery, are the main drivers of economic growth. Now is the opportunity to leverage, escalate the "Made in India" campaigns and efforts, in the wake of controlled FDIs and FIIs moving in.

Even in sports, this is a good opportunity to improve our sports infrastructure, support systems while aggressively and positively promoting Khelo India to groom our homegrown talents for the world stage.

The New Normal post Novel Corona Pandemic

While the rest of the economy is tanking from the crippling impact of corona virus, business at the biggest technology companies is holding steady - even thriving. With people told to work from home and stay away from others, the pandemic has deepened reliance on services from the technology industry’s most prominent companies while accelerating trends that were already benefiting them.

- Demand for cloud computing platforms and usage of remote/collaboration tools

- Demand and growth of grocery delivery services

- Uptick in Online content and Video on Demand apps

Even education, an integral part of the developing society and global economy as a whole at the ground level, and the working population getting WFH to appropriate social distancing is the norm and the future normal.

A point of concern remains that the Indian internet infrastructure is not ready yet completely for the paradigm shift to online and digital manifestation of all such critical services in the situation arising due to COVID-19. Connectivity and signal issues will still be a prevalent and thorny issue while accessing exclusively online services.

Having said this, when the economy does eventually improve, big tech could benefit from changes in consumer habits. And despite prolonged criticism as well as optimism from various quarters, the biggest companies are likely to finish the year stronger than ever.

Innovation in the times of Pandemic

History of global pandemics has evidence to prove that this contagion, will spark a worldwide wave of innovation. Pandemics create an environment that’s perfect for testing and implementing new ideas. As destructive as they are, each one of these diseases has forced society to evolve through the years, altering how we live and function.

While the black death way back in late 1340-s, broke down the feudal socio-political system and gave impetus to education and larger skilled workforce generation, the SARS pandemic as recent as early this century, gave a much needed thrust to the e-com proposition.

COVID-19 pandemic has already changed the cultural and business landscape of the world.

In terms of business, global supply chains have been disrupted and it could well be the end of China as the world’s leading manufacturing hub. Working from home (WFH) has become the new normal, leading to fresh challenges relating to teamwork, technology, productivity, collaboration and communication.

Although, tele-medicine has been around for years, but the corona virus has seen it explode worldwide. The platform now plays a critical role in keeping low-risk patients out of overburdened hospitals and delivering remote care without putting doctors and others at risk.

As the world shuts down in an effort to choke off the virus, but it is certain that the crisis will end, the corona virus' economic effects won’t be over in 2021. Even if commerce bounces back strongly in the next six months and we find a vaccine by early 2021, this outbreak will reshape economic behaviour lasting years or even decades to come.