Login
Beyond COVID-19: Leveraging technology to accelerate economic recovery
Almost all economists would agree that every economic downturn from the Great Depression of the 1930s to the global financial crisis of 2008 had something in common: there were all, to an extent, caused by human nature. This time it’s different, writes Arthur Marusevich.
Arthur Marusevich
As COVID-19 puts our economy into hibernation, many are left wondering: how long will recovery take?
Economic recovery begins with stitching back broken supply chains. In the worst of cases, where both the demand and supply side of the equation have been affected, broken supply chains generally cannot be repaired and must be replaced.
Since a typical supply chain can consist of multilayered components that interact with one another to move a product or service from supplier to customer, repairing or building supply chains can be a highly complex and time-consuming task.
For example, as China recovers from COVID-19 and ramps up spending to restart production, it has become apparent that not only is there a lack of demand for many “non-essential” items, such as cars, fashion or high-tech products, but many suppliers of those goods and services no longer exist. Therefore, it is clear that stimulus alone cannot solve the problem.
This is where the vital role of technology comes in.
Automating workflows and processes as much as possible should be the first order of business. Artificial intelligence (AI) should take over the repetitive, rotate and high-volume tasks, while human input should be used for higher level and strategic rebuilding tasks. For example, IT support and incident resolution services in a company are responsible for a large chunk of time in lost productivity and sales. Companies cannot afford this during recovery. Instead, by relying on robotic process automation technology that mimics human process, companies should have their IT support and incident services attended to automatically, while human input is concentrated into creating demand for services.
Technology is also available to support and accelerate economic recovery in other areas of the economy than would otherwise be possible. Certain industry segments will inevitably be impacted more than others. Travel and tourism appear to have already been hit hard during this COVID-19 pandemic, especially those operating physical stores. For companies concentrated in these industry segments, it is particularly important to go on the offence early to weather the storm than concentrating on survival. This means utilising AI-powered tools to start looking for new distribution channels early on, rather than trying to patch up broken supply chains.
Modern chatbots can also be used to provide concierge services. These chatbots can answer simple queries, ask qualification questions and connect them to the right contact person in real time. Then, by deploying AI assistants to engage with the data collected from the chatbots, companies can predict demand forecast and concentrate on improving in weaker areas of the business.
Finally, as technology-based process performance is designed to be less prone to errors and quicker to be deployed, it will result in lower implementation cost, time and risk than human input.
Unlike in the 1920s – and to an extent in 2008 – companies now have the advantage of sophisticated technology. Organisations that have embraced technology early on have already managed to stay afloat during this COVID-19 crisis, be it relying on software to have employees work from home, or collaborating remotely with stakeholders or business partners.
For these organisations, the road to recovery post-COVID-19 will be much faster. For others, it is still not too late to embrace technology.
Arthur Marusevich is a Canberra-based lawyer.
