How COVID-19 Has Affected Countries and Industries Worldwide
All across the world, wave of pandemic came in the year 2020, and have laid a crucial impact upon the operations of the company. In 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as the global pandemic on March 11, 2020. The outbreak began in Wuhan, China, but quickly swept across Asia, Europe, and the United States before being declared a worldwide emergency by the World Health Organization. Many distinct economic indicators pointed to an impending watershed moment in our lifetimes, if not human history, weeks before it was officially declared that the globe was facing negative effects of the outbreaks (Rabo, 2022). Countries from all across the world have been undertaking stringent measures such as lockdowns or border closures which are deployed to enable social distancing and reducing the chance of transmission rate. Companies have been affected directly and indirectly by the COVID-19 and thereby it is time that companies undertake measures to that effect in timely manner.
Modern international economies have been wrecked by the current outbreak of pandemic. As of now, the economic impact of this pandemic is still being considered. Government policies changes continuously and with the spread of this dangerous virus spreads across countries, company outputs have been highly affected, upsetting supply chain networks and disturbing the financial markets, thereby affecting the national growth (McMaster et.al, 2020).
When health and human tolls increasing day by day, the economic have been highly affected and which have led them to face the worst economic shock the globe has witnessed in several years. Urgent action is needed to mitigate the pandemic’s health as well as economic impacts, safeguard vulnerable groups and create the groundwork for long-term recovery in the wake of this calamity (Sharma er.al, 2020). For rising and developing nations, many of which confront severe vulnerabilities, thereby it is vital to enhance public health systems, addressing the problems posed by informality, and adopt reforms that will promote robust as well as sustainable growth after the health crisis abates (Caliguiri et.al, 2020).
Source: (Sharma et.al, 2020)
Significant growth downgrades apply to every area such as in the United States, Asia and the Pacific, and other places. The economies of South Asia have faced a decrease in growth by 2.7%, that of Sub-Saharan Africa by 2.8%, that of the Middle East and North Africa by 4.2%, that of Europe and Central Asia by 4.7%, and that of Latin America by 7.2%. Millions of people are likely to face the wrath of this economic downturn. This year, the International Monetary Fund estimated that the world’s real GDP would rise by 2.8 percent, leading to an estimated growth rate of 6 percent in 2021, after falling by 3.3 percent in 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic (Rabo, 2022). It is estimated by the World Trade Organization (WTO) that in 2021 global commercial trade would increase by 8% after decreasing in 2020, which is much lower than earlier estimated rates. Also, it is asserted that FDI flows will be taking a large amount of time to recover from these negative effects (Donthu and Gusatfsson, 2020).
Challenges Facing Developing Nations
Source: (Rabo, 2022)
Tourists, pharmaceuticals and solar power were all affected by the pandemic’s impact upon the economy. This implies that, the impact has led to the low growth in tourism and entertainment. The healthcare industry faced reduced level of equipment, PPE kits, human resources, burnouts, etc. Pressure on inadequate health care systems, decreased remittances, declines in commerce and tourism, stringent financial conditions and reduced capital flows owing to increasing debt will all have an impact on emerging and developing economies. In particular, exporters of energy and industrial goods would be heavily affected (Verbeke and Yuan, 2021). Efforts to limit the pandemic have resulted in an extraordinary drop in oil consumption and a dramatic drop in oil prices. In addition, demand for metals and transportation-related commodities, like platinum, rubber, etc., used in automobile parts, has decreased as well (Strange, 2022). Agriculture markets throughout the world are well-supplied, but certain countries had still faced food insecurity challenges due to trade restrictions and supply chain interruptions. Observing how quickly the crisis has engulfed the global economy may help us predict the depth of the recession. Because of the rapidity with which growth forecasts throughout the world are being revised lower, further policy actions are likely to be undertaken to sustain economic activity (Gereffi, 2020).
Source: (Rabo, 2022)
This outbreak of COVID-19, presents today’s CEOs with overwhelming, competing tasks and unexplored situations. Organizations all across the world are already implementing “no remorse” procedures in order to weather the pandemic better than they did before. To deal with the crisis, these business executives have adopted a mindset of reinvention, speeding up digital transformation, using variable cost structures, as well as inculcating agile operations by reinventing whole of the procedures (Yeganeh, 2021). The coronavirus pandemic has caused firms to examine how several contact centres are used, how staff can create meaningful customer experiences for enhancing their customer based, where they work, and how digital channels can support business continuity throughout the crisis and further towards the end of success.
Source: (Rabo, 2022)
Customers, citizens, employees as well as humanity throughout the world have had their lives irrevocably altered by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the crisis, consumers are making fundamental shifts in their purchasing habits and the structure of entire industries like consumer goods. Companies are required to evaluate the influence of these shifts on the way companies design, develop, communicate as well as operate the experiences which customers need and desire after the infection has passed or else their sales or revenue patterns will get highly affected. There is a potential for enterprises to accelerate the shift towards digital commerce with these new habits, such as shops mobilising to give customers with “contactless” delivery as well as curb-side pick-up services to enable effective customer service. In order to take advantage of these innovative market opportunities and digital client groups, firms will have to rethink their digital strategy (Yang et.al, 2021).
The COVID-19 dilemma has thrown businesses off balance due to changes within customer behaviour, supply networks, and their chains towards market. Agile ways of carrying out operations and value chain transformation must be accelerated by business executives in order to deal with the pandemic. A distributed global services model may also enable huge firms in many industries, from oil and gas to media, disseminate risk inside the company (McMaster et.al, 2020). A human-machine approach where everyone is a knowledge worker may also benefit firms now and prepare them for success beyond COVID-19. automating mundane jobs. For the future, supply chains must become more resilient, as well as more responsible, to deal with the present disturbances in their operations.
Adapting to Survive: How Businesses are Navigating the Pandemic
This crisis has put pressure on business executives to immediately rebalance their company’s risk and liquidity while also examining chances for development. It is imperative that the CEOs of today’s firms and industries respond quickly if they want to ensure their long-term survival as well as the stability of their current operations. With respect to handling the short-term liquidity issues, and at the same time, to resolve the expenses and profitability issues, for allocating adequate funds in new and innovative projects, such as mergers and acquisitions, there is a need to take immediate action at the end of the companies. There are a lot of CEOs who have been dealing with declining revenues as well as high rate of expenditures. Requiring investments in essential technology, processes, and people may be necessary to adjust interventions. Some people’s lives depend on having enough cash on hand. When it comes to the company’s survival, how soon it recovers from the global recession, and its future financial health and sustainability, early action is critical (Caliguri et.al, 2020).
Businesses face a wide range of new systems priorities as well as challenges, including business continuity, its associated risks, sudden volume changes, decision making in real time, productivity in workforce, and addressing the security risks. Leaders thereby are required to address immediate systems resilience issues and further help in laying the foundation for the future. Resistant leadership is a vital success component, as recognised by chemical industry leaders. With varied degrees of severity, the COVID-19 disaster has affected all sectors of society (Sharma er.al, 2020). Different countries, markets and governments are responding differently to the COVID-19 problem, which has affected and continues to impact global supply chains. New and unpredictable market conditions need constant change for businesses. To help our clients, we give industry-specific advice based on our daily talks with them.
Entrepreneurship is influenced by a wide range of factors, all of which are subject to change in response to the external environment. As a result, a greater number of policymakers and business executives are attempting to combat the coronavirus via the lens of an entrepreneurial environment. As a result of a variety of actions, a flourishing ecosystem can be created (Rabo, 2022). For an area to have a high degree of entrepreneurial activity, a lot of initiatives must be ongoing and aimed at tackling the coronavirus’s problems. Innovative behaviour can be sparked by learning and sharing information. Early-stage investments, cutting-edge research institutions, innovative models used, entrepreneurship-specific human capital, among entrepreneurs, as well as cultural orientations which are indeed supportive of entrepreneurial activities are some of the most important characteristics of a vibrant start-up ecosystem.
The pandemic of COVID-19 presents a significant obstacle to the dissemination of effective practises for reducing risk. It necessitates a thorough understanding of how to analyse, develop, implement, and manage risk mitigation measures, as well as how to decide who should be involved, who is likely to be in charge and the ways through which communication can take place effectively. Intergovernmental, sectoral, as well as stakeholder (decision-makers, practitioners, scientists and citizens) as well as societal levels of communication and sharing information to inculcate the aspect of democratic learning fostered through communication and information sharing at either national, international, or regional levels (Yang et.al, 2021).
Risk mitigation is a multidisciplinary decision-making process which is based upon data from risk and exposure assessments, which shows how important it is. Ensuring that all of the relevant data is taken into account is essential to compiling regulatory options and selecting the best possible regulatory response towards COVID-19. The time of this writing, many nations have implemented risk mitigation measures and are working to prepare for the future by studying nations that are ahead of schedule in the pandemic as well as learning from their experiences (El Baz and Ruel, 2021).
- Due to the need for activating remote working options in case of pandemic, employees must stay at home to reduce exposure and to delay or stop the spread of the illness. A pandemic, as opposed to an isolated weather catastrophe, might force a large number of workers to work remotely for a lengthy period of time if the whole facility in question is shut down (Settembre-Blundo et.al, 2021). Businesses are required to invest in solutions that allow employees to work remotely and through virtual means, reviewing their present bandwidth to provide accommodations for remote work, undertake frequent network stress tests as well as create workarounds for key jobs that cannot be executed from home.
Remote working is most appropriate way for the service industry, but it does not function as well in the industrial sector, resulting in major implications on product supply chains. – Adapting to pandemics will need companies pushing the limits of their typical resilience plans. In the case of a pandemic, typical measures such as job transfer, staff augmentation workforce relocation, may not be feasible alternatives with respect to the fact that employees and alternative locations/sites may be just as affected by the incident (Uchehara et.al, 2020). Plan and strategy implementation might be complicated in future if essential infrastructure such as public transportation, telephone, as well as internet access is impaired or unavailable. To overcome these limitations, companies are required to devise unique tactics, such as inter-affiliate contracts pursuant to subcontract labour to or alternative supply chain suppliers, as well as further plan around regions of high manual intervention and concentration risks.
- Data-sharing agreements (such as those needed by the General Data Protection Regulation) are required to be included within contracts among country affiliations to avoid ambiguity about terms, payments, rates, and regulatory obligations; contracts should also verify that relevant permits are in place to do work required in regulated industries, if required. As a result, today’s businesses are more integrated with third parties, including outsourced vendors, payment processors, data processors, cloud service providers, aggregators, and suppliers (Butt, 2021). Pandemics can also affect these third parties, as well. It is important for companies to thoroughly understand their key parties and to devise contingency plans, such as insourcing strategies or substitutability, if the critical third party’s ability to execute services is compromised.
The alignment of a company’s backup plans with those of its third-party vendors should also be checked. Conversely, firms should look for chances to rely on third partners with geographically distributed operations to assist with important internal processes. For this reason, corporations should keep in mind that their peers as well as competitors may turn to the same third parties in the event of a market contagion, resulting in a concentration risk (Belhadi er.al, 2021).
- A variety of channels must be used to stay in touch with consumers for effective engagement, who need to know that their interests are being taken into account in all business decisions. Customer queries about a company’s supply chain, specifically if resources are situated in afflicted regions, and also address prospects about how those resources are likely to pose any possible threats to them for future usage of the company’s products as well as services may arise. A well-written frequently asked questions document that is published and disseminated across numerous means, involving the company’s website, blogs, and its social media, can prove to be a valuable tool for addressing consumer complaints. Additionally, affected consumers may want to be contacted by firms to check in on their well-being and provide support, if needed (Gartner, 2022).
The spread of misinformation via social media during a pandemic, for example, might complicate matters further. Companies need to establish a comprehensive communications strategy which clearly outlines the processes and guidelines for engaging with a wide range of stakeholders (such as customers, counterparties, regulators, employees, governments, health officials), as well as any legal and jurisdictional considerations.
- Companies within the highly regulated industries, such as in areas of health, finance, energy as well as utilities are required to assess and further comply with various applicable legal requirements at all stages whether at federal, state, local level.
They are also required to have a process in place to notify as well as engage with regulators (Gartner, 2022). To test and simulate pandemic readiness, companies must increase the complexity of current scenarios. This involves testing against scenarios which helps in evaluating their ability to respond to long periods of outage; numerous outages; as well as a complete closure of a key operating facility, city, or area; high absenteeism (more than half the workforce), etc.
Crisis management governance and reaction must also include C-suite executives as well as delegated authority, or in respect of key decision-makers, such that delegates are prepared to make appropriate choices in the event that prime decision-makers are unavailable. Products and services will suffer as a result of an outbreak of a pandemic that has a large impact on current resources, infrastructure, and technology. Companies are required to continually re-prioritize the delivery of products and services which are absolutely crucial to fulfil consumer requirements and stabilise the market. Prioritization frameworks and risk tolerances must be clearly established and backed by a rigorous governance structure in order for companies to tolerate risk.
Conclusion
To conclude, it is highly suggested that companies undertake reasonable measures to fight the impact of COVID-19 such that their supply chain functionalities are agile as well as operations are conducted in efficient manner by considering the demands and needs of the customers. There are some key exceptions that must be accommodated by expanding on current human resources, finance, legal and operations and business procedures for expediating these benefits provide. Before finalising any policy changes, compliance, risk assessment and legal measures should thoroughly analyse them to determine what risks are acceptable to accept, as well as any subtleties in legislation or jurisdiction (including local overtime laws present in various geographical locations). Supply chain specialists and firms with worldwide operations need to build several sourcing and production strategies in several locations of the world in order to avoid the risk of such bad situations.
References
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