How Covid-19 Will Change and Open New Opportunities for ICT Industry?
Published on : Thursday 07-05-2020
The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector expects the growth opportunity, as the Covid-19 pandemic increases the reliance on digital technologies. ICT firms anticipate the international show and plan to introduce new services, products and solutions to get much exposure. As enterprises in the sector are substantially investing in their digital strategy and balancing short-term efforts with long-term measures, they will evolve from this pandemic more competitive.
According to a new report from Forrester, there is a need to prepare the organization for a pandemic as the spread of the coronavirus continues. The company said, “Use this opportunity to review and update your risk management and business continuity practices.” Enterprises need to take practical steps such as refreshing plans, updating employee policies, communicating frequently, and carrying out succession planning, it says.
IDC, in its Worldwide Black Book Live Edition, February 2020, reported the growth in global IT spending is expected to reduce by 3-4% by the end of 2020, considering “Pessimistic Scenario” due to the outbreak of Coronavirus disease. The impact might be even more profound as spread seems to overwhelm many countries beyond China. While the major impact is expected to be on Hardware business, the Software and Services businesses are also expected to slow down as the spread of Coronavirus goes beyond the boundaries of Asia, IDC noted.
On the other side, there are also expectations that the adoption of collaborative applications, security solutions, big data and Artificial Intelligence will increase in the coming days. IDC experts believe that the Covid-19 crisis may open windows of opportunities for IT vendors to experiment with some concepts of future of work and some of them might become mainstream as the epidemic over. The pandemic may also deliver an opportunity to IT vendors to set up as consulting partners to handhold their clients in helping them sail through the crisis. The IDC report findings also indicate that the coronavirus outbreak will allow IT vendors to test their resilience on business continuity, remote connectivity, and security as they look at innovative ways to deliver services to their clients.
In India, many IT companies are working with their clients to get special approvals and service level agreement holidays when needed to have employees connect remotely to continue offering services, particularly in supporting mission-critical IT systems. Moreover, the information and communication technology industry has also emerged as one of the key sectors that is helping navigate the situation emerged by Covid-19. On the other hand, the sector is affected in terms of spending.
We cannot deny the fact that the industries will experience a pessimistic impact on their overall sales, operation, supply chain and revenue. Companies need to integrate a strategic approach to bounce back. They need to initiate digital initiative at some level to come up with innovative, long-term projects that will help them stand again in a competitive environment.