The Hand Sanitiser effect on Tech – Will it last?

You can sneeze in this meeting, yes. But the tea-uptick that some tech segments are enjoying, or pushing, due to the coffee-scare (after Corona) may be just a blip. Is it big enough to roll on though?

Strange effect no. 1: Cookies, ice cream, junk food are hijacking more space in customers' carts. Turns out that more and more Italians are now cooking at home. Flour sales (and may be some goofy flour) has hit the roof – rising 80 per cent since the Corona lock-down. Sales of sugar - up 28 percent, milk - up 20 percent. The National Farmers Association Coldiretti has also shared that there is a hard-to-miss boom in homemade bread, pasta and cakes for Italian families.

Strange effect no. 2: Researchers have collaborated and used AI (Artificial Intelligence) and NLP (Natural-Language Processing) to come up with the Covid-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19). It packs over 24,000 research papers and consolidates existing research in one place while also mining them well with algorithms – yes AI researchers and the medical communities get to shake hands with a new intimacy here.

Strange effect no. 3: Cloud tools, virtual events and collaboration solutions are slipping in fast to fill the yawning gap left open by global-level-event cancellations and the ever-growing eerie silence of thinly-inhabited offices.

Wait, say that again! How can that be strange? That’s the cardinal way a demand curve moves. When Coffee takes a hit, the demand for substitute goods like Tea HAS to brew strong!

It was bound to happen, was it not? If we look at what Forrester distilled on employee safety via its PandemicEX research project, we will notice 29 per cent of US adults saying they are “afraid to go to work because of the risk of exposure” to COVID-19. As many as 45 per cent found their work lives disrupted by the coronavirus whether they come into direct personal contact with the virus itself or not.

Work-level, and business-level, social distancing had to be a corollary of the Corona outbreak and the ensuing-drill of precautions. More so when we know that two-thirds of Covid-19 infections could be spread by people whose own infections are undetected (as a new research in the journal Science has warned of). A model developed by public health scientists at Columbia University contends well that undetected cases were responsible for the lion’s share of the spread of infections in Wuhan. That’s why even if one is not having Covid-19, chances are that even without knowing how, one would still be able to pass it on.

That explains a slew of events, conferences and work meetings coming under the axe. But how is that helping the virtual side of working and networking? And how much?

The virtual ‘Namaste’ catches on

Since the arrival of the Corona outbreak, the demand, and usage of virtual alternatives have increased, shares Devendra Khandegar, Founder & CEO – Kredily, a Human Resource Management Software firm. “This makes sense because as a precautionary measure, companies have started providing Work-from-Home options to their employees. Meetings are now happening on tools like Zoom or Google Hangouts. In the same manner, Attendance Management App is replacing Biometric Devices.”

The Coronavirus has had a massive impact with more than 50 tech events and conferences getting cancelled across the world. “Our pipeline till May 2020 has been completely affected. We had 20 shows in the next 3 months,” says Ratnesh Singh (Nes), Head of Global Business, Experience Marketing, at Buzznation (a 3-year old marketing experience company).

“Fortunately, we have been working on the events technology for the past three years. We were working with global technology clients. And for the kind of scale they have, they need deep-down technology for their global events. We have been working on nearly 18 events where we are focused only on event technology and nothing else. So when it comes to offering alternatives, companies like Buzznation are better prepared to serve the clients since they understand their ecosystem and can readily serve them through our tech team which can offer new options.”

Chaitanya Chokkareddy, Chief Innovation Officer, Ozonetel affirms to a definite impact. “In the past 24 hours alone, we have helped Acko General Insurance switch their call center to the work-from-home model. Other call centers have run tests on their work-from-home option with us so that they are prepared for any sudden emergency. Transitioning to work from home, even at a day’s notice is possible for both sales and support call centers in both in-bound and out-bound roles. The businesses that have switched or tested their work-from-home options so far are in the e-commerce and insurance space.”

The category of new enquiries is worth watching this time. “Yes. Call Centers are contacting us and requesting tests on call-forwarding to agents' mobiles or PSTN numbers.” He adds.

There is more to the impact that Corona outbreak brought in workspace tools. Companies of this niche have started adding special changes, features, support now that the demand and need have become so acuminated.

Khandegar avers that the company is now offering one of its Enterprise features in the Kredily's Attendance App called "IP Restriction" for Free. “This feature restricts attendance to your office premises or a specific location. Giving Kredily's Attendance App and IP Restriction feature completely replaces the need for biometric devices. We also offer support for the implementation of the same.”
Singh also tells that Buzznation is offering complete support in creating, launching and managing virtual events using events tech: right from audience acquisition to virtual event set up to attendee analytics.

Good – Now, Make the Tea Better

There must be a host of lessons or ideas for innovation that this business challenge has injected the industry with. It is time that vendors of the alternative side can hang on to this new-found interest with new adhesives; and deepen their propositions. This is the moment to make this interest last beyond the Corona-shake-out. This is a good spot to actually bolster AI, Augmented Reality (AR) and creative collaboration/networking ahead. And to work on the weak areas that kept users away so far.

A set of data - the 2019 State of Work report from Owl Labs, has unearthed that meeting prep and setup were found to be around 35 percent more challenging for remote workers than for people who are launching meetings from HQ. Video and audio quality also came up as 26 percent more problematic for remote workers. Not to forget, interruptions, connectivity snags and other IT issues – users had more than laziness to blame for not swapping physical for digital.

How will virtual solutions leverage and ensure that this interest and demand do not fade away as the much-needed normalcy resumes.

Singh answers candidly that there are many enquiries, but marketers are still figuring out what to do. “There are challenges in hosting a virtual event, especially for large companies like say, Infosys or TCS. Mere awareness of virtual tools cannot help launch a custom event in a short time. They need a proper team, technology and the know-how.”

He augurs that as we move ahead, events technology will be mainstreamed into virtual events. They will be pursued alongside the regular tradeshows and exhibits. AI, surely, will play a role in making event marketing efforts precise, and outcomes more predictable.”

There is no specific innovation that we need for this emergency, but yes, AI and deeper integrations are definitely on the road ahead, reasons Chokkareddy. “Self service and BOTs will allow businesses to operate customer support 24x7 and it’s pretty handy in these kind of situations.”

Snow-balling vs. Snow-mowing

According to a study from ReportBuyer, the video conferencing landscape will be worth around $13.82 billion by 2023. A look at some numbers from Gartner Research also points out that more than 50 percent of global salaried employees will work remotely - at least occasionally- in 2020.

May be Corona’s unexpected office-grey-out has nudged people into considering other options that were, all the time, right before their eyes- anyway. What remains to be seen now is whether this momentum will gather more force and speed, or would it die like a flash in the Italian pan.

“The demand for Attendance App has certainly increased in the past few days. Speaking of demand in the coming days, we're pretty sure that our customers won't go back to biometric devices. The ease of managing and tracking attendance with a mobile app surpasses the need for any biometric devices.” informs Khandegar.

“Virtual events have been around for about 12 years now. It is the only way forward for the industry, especially in such times. Some of our clients are working on putting in place a virtual events road map. About five to 10 per cent of the event budget could be parked for virtual events. And is likely to continue even after the situation improves,” hopes the alert-and-optimistic Singh.

Chokkareddy calls Cloud solutions ‘the future’. “The COVID-19 challenge had only reiterated the advantage of having a flexible solution. Flexibility is an in-built advantage of pure cloud solutions. But it is not the only USP. Clients choose cloud solutions for CAPEX savings, easy CRM integrations, scalability, and advanced analytics. When normalcy resumes, they will still find that ours is not just the more flexible solution, it’s the better one.”

Andrew Bartels, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester, has already argued in his post that the economic and tech-market impacts of the outbreak would, most probably, be short-lived and localised. “There may be some disruptions of supply chains, but overall, the impact should be barely noticeable. Longer-term, this event and the Chinese government’s response may accelerate the existing tendency of US firms to look for alternative locations for their supply chains outside of China.” He points out. Now that’s the catch. How to convert this temporary turbulence into lessons for a lifetime!

The sudden rise in the demand for sanitisers is a bit of an irony – should we not be following good hygiene even on normal days? Environmental costs, congestion, commuting stress, energy bills, oil prices, travel burdens – should virtual really be just some plan B that pops in emergencies and contingencies? Should it not be a plan A?

That’s the thought that should stay contagious once we are past this challenging phase? Until then, stay frosty, stay safe.