The supply chains will integrate into flexible and resilient ecosystems
Because of the coronavirus, China had to cut back on production and supply, which triggered the chain reaction we may see today. This is a weak point of the existing global scheme.
There is a need in deliveries across countries and suppliers while supporting cost savings through increased production and traceability. To do this, there is a need of global platforms with sophisticated technologies – 5G, robotics, blockchain (a continuous sequential chain of blocks containing information, built according to certain rules.) These technologies will help to establish a contact between customers and numerous reliable suppliers in a common network.
As the result, this will cause increased demand for unmanned vehicles and drones, as drivers will not be enough to completely cover the needs of online trading. Traditional B2B platforms like Amazon and Alibaba are likely to become leaders in this area and will begin to fight for ownership of such an ecosystem in the next ten years.
Smart cities will become a commonness
The coronavirus pandemic caused officials to work fast. China broke all records by building a huge hospital in Wuhan with an area of almost 60 thousand square meters in just 10 days! South Korea conducted speed tests for 200 thousand citizens and used smartphones to track the movements of infected people to quickly alert healthy people about such movements.
All these measures could be further improved if there were more “smart” cities in the world. According to a recent study by the University of Glasgow, of the 5,500 major cities, only 27 have this level of technological development.
The authorities will undoubtedly take this tactic into service, and investments will shift towards smart cities. In the event of new crises, it will become important to carefully monitor and maintain order. Mostly, smart governments, specialized companies like Cisco, Microsoft and Siemens, as well as digital city startups across Europe and the USA will benefit from this.
Psychological assistance using digital technology
Coronavirus will accelerate the transition to “remote” and online training. It’s harder to figure out what will happen if most people need to work together remotely and indefinitely.
It is possible that such a transition will begin to undermine the morale, productivity and psychological health of employees around the world, so companies need to prepare now.
IT companies such as Github and Automattic, that use the remote work model could share their experiences and invent appropriate technologies to help people all over the world.
For individuals working remotely, the prospects are also not so bad. Several startups are already providing psychological assistance (such as Braive and Moment Pebble) so they can also share help and solve the isolation problem. There are networking programs such as Ripple that will help with mentoring and development – and this becomes more relevant than ever if you work remotely.
The blog of Logistics at MGEPS at UPV 