COVID-19 managed to do what nothing else could — bring the world economy to a sudden standstill. While many industries were affected by the lockdown and the subsequent restrictions that have become essential for safety, the digital infrastructure and Cloud economy have done exceptionally well. The reduced physical movement of the masses has forced many businesses to re-evaluate and relook at how they engage with their customers. For example, what happens when there is no physical store for customers to go to? A Web storefront is an immediate solution, but then other questions arise. How do customers find the app? How can we ensure that they can seamlessly navigate and pay online? How does a business now gather data to personalize the experience? And most importantly, how does a business go about building all of this? Questions like these have led to digital acceleration and adoption of Cloud infrastructure. This is one industry that’s going to surge ahead and contribute significantly to the economy as well as to job creation.
“Reduced physical movement of people has forced businesses to reevaluate and relook at how they engage with their customers.”
Focus on data intelligence
Data needs infrastructure to be leveraged well. Different industries are leveraging data in different ways but one prospective customer category in the data intelligence space that we didn’t foresee was the government. Covid has forced governments to look for avenues that could help them understand, predict and manage the pandemic. For example, location data could help the government track where people were congregating, which could help prevent hotspots. This data can also help in checking if people follow quarantine regulations in containment zones, social distancing rules, and more. In the fight against Covid, location data has played a significant role and this is why we have seen a massive focus from the government sector.
Going forward, location data is going to play an even bigger role in vaccine distribution. In large countries like the USA and India, where you have tier-one, tier-two, and tier-three cities, coordinating the vaccination drive involves not only taking into account the massive population, but also cold storage facilities, transportation, and logistics. In this case, the location data comes in three different forms — the census data, data available with the government, and real-time data based on the movement of people. We can get optimal results only when these three are evaluated together.
Driving economic growth
Covid has changed the way we live and work. The role that Cloud infrastructure companies have played in getting businesses to go digital has been phenomenal. The retail, healthcare, and automation industries will hopefully be the driving force to get the economy back on its feet, considering the leaps and bounds it has taken to go digital. And location data is a vital part of that digital and economic growth story.
