Author(s): Sapna Khatri, Devendra Kumar Pandey, Astha Joshi, Jaiprakash Ramani
World is sailing through the waves of Covid-19 now, crests and troughs becoming matter of political and social debates only, inconsequential though for business. “Business as usual” has been reincarnated through the pandemic into a “New Normal” where virus, humans and the economics co-exists, almost seamlessly. Perhaps, the biggest disruption created by “New Normal” is the Work-from-Home (WFH) becoming mainstream for almost all industry sectors and Gig-work trending in the developing economies as well. The pandemic and complete lockdowns for several months, flight of migrant workers, and restricted mobility, did precipitate the use of technology, making it the primary mode of contactless & faceless business conduct. Whilst one may see Zoom, TEAMS, etc. being the mainline communication forum & the most visible ambassadors of the technology usage, what ambushed in the background was the acceleration and push for technological solutions, for human resource management, production planning, digital manufacturing, supply chain management, warehousing, delivery & logistics, customer service, etc. The key enablers were Internet, I-o-T, cloud computing, data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data, etc. each to varying degree. The most visible infestation could be seen at the lowest levels of economic activity, where even the vegetable vendor used technological interference to service their customers using WhatsApp and Wallet payments, something unimaginable till recently. By some extrapolation, If the technology impregnation can be accelerated at “ignorant” level of business conduct, the mighty Corporations have surely put their pre-pandemic strategies into tailspin, to be technologically up-stepped fast and adopt new behaviors for “New Normal”.