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COVID-19 And The Industry: A Boon For Some and Bane For Others

  • Writer: Tejas Rokhade
    Tejas Rokhade
  • May 12, 2020
  • 6 min read

Everyone is currently dealing with the struggle to find the right balance between personal and professional lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. What is the impact of these changes on the industry? Which businesses are emerging as winners and who will lose in the race to synchronise the needs of the consumer with their own?


Crux of the Matter


Who Lost And Who Won?

The global impact of COVID-19

The Victorious Lot Industries such as media, technology and E-commerce are making the most out of the current chaos. 

1. Online grocery vendors like Grofers and delivery services like Amazon, are adding extra job positions to deal with the surge in demand of essentials including supermarket items and healthcare supplies.


Instacart says it plans to hire 300,000 gig workers over the next 3 months, more than doubling its current base, as demand surges for grocery delivery services due to the coronavirus pandemic forcing people to shop from home. https://t.co/xwa8Mt98bT — NBC News (@NBCNews) March 23, 2020

Logistics like Cainiao, Alibaba Group are providing no-contact drop-off of packages. As doorstep delivery is becoming the new norm, National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) is planning to build its own online platform to take on food delivery services like Zomato and Swiggy.

2. Pharmaceutical companies like Japan’s Fujifilm and India’s Cipla are playing a large role in vaccine research and testing drugs in the pandemic, for this is their chance at reviving the industry worldwide on their own terms and cost.

As it is the European Commission has been funding projects to develop treatments, and diagnostics via grants from Horizon 2020 and the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), has announced up to 45 million euros ($48.8 million) in public funding.

3. The entertainment industry is booming with platforms like Netflix, Hotstar and Amazon Prime Video reporting an exponential rise in viewership, with the latter recently launching an exclusive gaming arena for its users.


Commentary: The rise and rise of Netflix in a time of coronavirus https://t.co/M6Tcdg4iU0 pic.twitter.com/y4ixVuFNh3 — CNA (@ChannelNewsAsia) May 8, 2020

4. Video Conferencing companies like Zoom and Houseparty are seeing a major rise in sales, even after getting themselves into controversies like user permissions for the former and hacking user data for the latter.

The Ones Defeated 1. Movie theatres hold an exclusive window for film releases and demand 90-day, exclusive rights before the movie can be shown elsewhere. Filmmakers would be forced to release the movies directly online and thus Cinemas would face a diminished box office revenue. 


Love your local cinema? Show your support by donating to @mubiuk's Cinemas Fund to help support cinemas across the UK impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.https://t.co/n3cvhfKw1V More info: https://t.co/1G8F4Od8fc pic.twitter.com/11PsLj6pNV — Glasgow Film (@glasgowfilm) May 10, 2020

Filmmaker Universal recently released it’s film Trolls 2 digitally, making it the first mainstream movie to be released online. Audience rented it at a cost of $19.99 for 48 hours.

2. The sports industry would have to cancel professional sports events and tournaments. It has started with Italy, Europe’s worst-hit coronavirus country, canceling all sporting events and France, Spain, Germany and the UK swiftly followed.


The NCAA cancelled its men's and women's basketball tournaments Thursday as the novel coronavirus has knocked the sports and entertainment industry off its feet. #COVID-19 https://t.co/ucuM1QKF7I — The Center Square (@thecentersquare) March 12, 2020

This year’s Euro 2020 football tournaments has been postponed until 2021 while BCCI has cancelled world’s richest Twenty20 tournament, Indian Premier League 2020.

3. The transportation industry including airlines, metros and trains are the most badly hit. Cab booking services like Uber and Ola would be less preferred even after the world returns to normalcy after the curve flattens.


The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has finally woken up and agreed to investigate airlines that are holding on to more than £7bn in passengers cash for flight that have been cancelled due to the coronavirus crisis. https://t.co/esm8LI4bTB — Stephen Rush (@GatwickFirst) May 10, 2020

There have also been reports of the global airline industry needing up to US$200 billion (£171 billion) in emergency support.The US Travel Association is projecting loss of 5 million travel-related loss of jobs.

4. According to the International Energy Agency, global oil demand is set to witness its first annual drop from 90,000 barrels a day from 2019 to 99.9 million barrels a day in 2020. The number of operating oil and gas rigs in the world’s largest oil producers US and Saudi Arabia, fell to 374 last week. This is record low since 1940, as per the data from energy services company Baker Hughes Co. 

World liquid fuels production and consumption balance

Meanwhile the Indian government has announced an excise duty hike of ₹10 and ₹13 on petrol and diesel respectively, to earn additional revenue without burning consumer pockets.

5. Investment bankers would be badly hit, with shares of leading banks like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup being down, more than 30% from January highs. 

6. The unorganized sectors of outside vendors and food sellers in nations popular for their open stall culture like India, would be affected. Additionally the shift from company work spaces to home created ones will diminish the need for security guards and office peons.


"Taxi drivers, care workers and security guards are all among the most at-risk groups, the Office for National Statistics said on Monday."- The Independent.https://t.co/nV9fohhjZ7 — Debashis Chowdhury (@cdydev) May 12, 2020

7. Around 20 countries across the world derive more than 10% of their GDP (gross domestic product) from the tourism industry, as per findings of a recent World Bank report.

US is expected to lose $519 billion in travel spending in 2020, resulting in a total economic loss of $1.2 trillion in economic output nationwide, as per the U.S. Travel Association and analytics firm Tourism Economics. These losses are nine times the impact of 9/11, on the travel sector revenue.

The Floaters Depending on how they adapt their business models to take advantage of the emerging opportunities during the pandemic and in the post-corona world, their fate will be sealed.

1. Education Industry : Even with school and university providers closing their physical doors, their digital operations are still going on in full swing. Students all over the world are learning at home via interactive apps like DingTalk, Microsoft Team and Google Classroom. 


Thousands Are Watching This Kindergarten Teacher’s Online Classes https://t.co/2N1BGdi1GW — FanHost.LIVE (@FanhostLive) May 12, 2020

120 million Chinese are getting access to learning material through live television broadcasts. In India, Impartus was the first company to allow academic institutions to use its platform and conduct classes for free.

2. Manufacturing Industry: Factories across the world will struggle initially as the regular goods produced by them would no longer be counted as an immediate need. However, they can change their production to suit the current consumer’s demands.


Watch @JayTimmonsNAM discuss with @TeamCavuto how manufacturers will drive the recovery and renewal of the American economy. #CreatorsRespondhttps://t.co/qNXr0sIxQ4 — The NAM (@ShopFloorNAM) May 11, 2020

China’s BYD Auto has opened up product lines for hand sanitizers and the Japan electronics giant, Sharp is using clean-room production facilities for LCD display panels to make surgical masks. 

Curiopedia


  1. New Normal is a term in business and economics that refers to financial conditions following the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and the aftermath of the 2008–2012 global recession. The term has since been used in a variety of other contexts to imply that something which was previously abnormal has become commonplace. May 18, 2008, Bloomberg news article written by journalists Rich Miller and Matthew Benjamin is credited for first using the term: “Post-Subprime Economy Means Subpar Growth as New Normal in US”

  2. DingTalk is a corporate application by Alibaba. The app enables Chinese students to attend classes remotely. A rumor had been circulating that apps with one-star ratings would be booted from the App Store. And according to a dispatch from the London Review of Books, a bunch of Chinese kids started reviewing DingTalk with 1-star rating to remove it from the app store. In order to combat the situation, DingTalk uploaded a video on the Chinese streaming site Bilibili. The video featured memes and cartoons singing a catchy tune with lyrics begging for better reviews.

  3. In the first week of May, Taiwan started its professional baseball season. Stadiums are filled with stands with fake spectators instead of real ones. Taiwan is being praised for how well it is dealing with Coronavirus compared to other nations. “Welcome to the one and only live sports game on the surface of the planet,” one of the commentators said during one of the matches. As of today, Taiwan has reported only 440 positive cases and 7 deaths only.

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