Overview of IT enabled Service Industry and Impact of Covid-19
The COVID- 19 pandemics have caused drastic changes in many industries and Information Technology (IT) industry is the major among them.
Effects Of Lockdown on the IT sector:
The consequential weakness the IT industry is facing now is due to the fall in the economy, as a lot of companies are forced to ask their employees to work from home (remotely) keeping in the account of the public health concerns. Many companies who have international dealers look on to a massive loss due to this pandemic crisis.
The spread of this deadly virus has caused a lot of tech conferences to get cancelled, which could have been a great partnership opportunity for many companies to expand their horizons.
Few of the meetings were shifted to teleconferences, but this won’t have the same reach, and the conference attendees will not be able to have the networking opportunity as they would be attending the actual conference. Owing to the cancellation of these major tech conferences, there is an estimated loss of US$ 1 Billion.
Blooming Opportunities and Threats in the IT industry
As the consequences of the coronavirus, a lot of opportunities opened up in the IT industry, such as the growing need for the 5th generation (5G) technology. This will help increase connections that support the primed remote interactions. It has become the top priority for many organizations due to pandemic. Telehealth is one of the developing industries in the crises. This could help people to get diagnosed, treated, and operated with the need of a physician to be physically present. A lot of apps have been built in the past few months to help achieve this. There are many patients who are in self-quarantine who need medical supervision and medical assistance every day, and these applications could help them achieve that.
As per the UN’s report, India is among the 15 most-affected economies due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While there have been no contract cancellations so far by the service partners in various geographies, many clients have asked for reduced support for application and maintenance services.The disruption of world trade due to the pandemic is expected to have a trade impact of USD 348 million on India, although it is very low in comparision to its counterparts such as Europe (including the UK), the US, Japan and South Korea
There are a few threats too, such as after the pandemic is over what would happen to the IT sector?
May exporters in this industry feel that it will not be able to stabilize after the downfall, unlike the 2008 global economic and financial meltdown. Back then, the central banks helped to improve the stability of the market, but now even the central banks are helpless. Amidst the challenging situation due to pandemic that the IT industry is witnessing, the companies are expected to significantly see their growth slow. However, many businesses who has never given a thought of outsourcing could capitalize on this situation to partner with a few outsourcing firms during this time to stretch their wings. Now companies are adopting work from remote location, thereby requiring more cloud services and IT applications to effectively enhance and strengthen their information related security from cyber attacks. So on one side, when the Indian IT industry is expected to witness pressure on new contracts and pricing, there are segments within the IT domain wherein outsourcing is anticipated to increase. Near term, issues persist, though the same problems are likely to open new opportunities to some within the outsourcing services area.