Amidst the assumptions of the third wave of COVID pandemic hitting India in the early October, everyone is currently unsure about the businesses and industry surviving another attack. While everyone has more or less witnessed the devastations caused by the pandemic during the first two waves, the industry pivoted its way to undergo a digital transmission to remain afloat during those crucial times. Traditional enterprises that had started their journey in the same way for generations restructured the businesses across the digital domain or take exit from the industry. While many business enterprises trained their employees to adapt with the concept of digitization, sadly, some businesses couldn’t cope up with the changes happening within the industry which resulted their disappearance from the market.
Impact of the First Two Waves
According to a report, more than 80 percent of small and medium businesses that participated in the survey, had successfully adopted the nuances of the digitisation. Similarly, almost 55 percent of companies witnessed a cost-reduction, and more than 50 percent of organizations witnessed boosted diligence and an improved comprehension of customer behaviour. According to some surveys, it is also noticed that more than 42 percent of companies saw enormous profits through the adoption of digitisation. This means there are few businesses that not only just survived, but flourished amidst the threatening pandemic conditions, and managed to come out of the danger of completely closing down.
Facing the Third Wave
To sustain the upcoming third wave, businesses must apply their experiences from the past two waves by focusing on productivity, cost-effectiveness, maintain transparency, ensuring employee engagement to accommodate hybrid models of work. Operating remotely, businesses must learn to manage costs, make timely retail payments, and focus on streamlining the supply chain management.
After the first two epidemiologic episodes took some heavy tolls on the livelihoods and lives of the employees, organizations are better prepared to shield businesses and their employees if a probable third Covid wave were to strike. With employees vaccinated, companies are feeling more assured this time and are gradually stepping into community vaccinations. Multinationals are being advised to help setting up vaccination camps to minimise health risks and lockdowns adversely impacting the economy. To be certain, top-notch executives of various organizations would not want any significant spike in covid infections at least until September, which is the expectable timeline for vaccine supplies to ease.
The statistics of the Union Ministry of Science and Technology’s mathematical model, SUTRA suggest that the approaching third wave could be more disastrous than the first wave of 2020, but not as harsh as the second one of 2021, which was at least ten times more severe than the first wave.
Adopting digitization across their verticals, organizations have remodelled their functionalities which makes them adequately equipped to take on the upcoming third wave. Irrespective of the numerous predictions and assumptions about how sever it would be, employers and employees are not ready to succumb to the wrath of the pandemic without giving it a tough fight.