Ever since the World Health Organization declared the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, companies across the world from all sectors are taking necessary precautions against the spread and impact of the virus. Either the virus has forced them to slow down or halt operations or has led to cancellation of production altogether in lieu of workers testing positive for Covid-19. IT/Software Companies, on the other hand, are upgrading their systems and pushing for more flexibility in their way of working, letting their employees work remotely. Since a lot of companies offshore worldwide, vendors have taken the biggest beating in the face of this pandemic. Given below is a detailed narrative of the impact of the covid-19 coronavirus on the offshore industry.

  • Businesses Are Opting for Lower Cost Options: Every offshore company in India is getting more business in these times of a pandemic outbreak. Reason, resources in India are cost-effective unlike other countries where the currency is stronger. Companies worldwide get access to a bigger and wider talent pool and pay less for their services. Most importantly, in times of a pandemic when operations in most countries across the world have been shut down, lower cost options are being seriously explored.
  • Companies Have Stopped Fretting About Labor Laws: The impact of the covid-19 coronavirus on the offshore industry has been profound in the sense that businesses worldwide have begun outsourcing to destinations such as India fully knowing that labor laws are not an issue at all with Indian companies unlike how the scenario is in the West. Governments worldwide have come down heavily on companies who have not followed lockdown regulations and imposed heavy sanctions on them. Not allowing employees to work from home and not paying them their full salaries have issues taken up seriously by Governments against all those companies violating lockdown norms. With Indian companies, Labor Laws are not an issue as all of them comply with Government orders and work accordingly. Hence, there has been a surge in business.
  • Companies Not Buried Under Social Security Obligations Are Being Preferred: Indian companies are not tied to any kinds of social security obligations because of which their services are being highly sought during times of a lockdown and a global pandemic that has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Indian companies are under no such obligations to provide any kind of social security assistance or pay social security charges to any authority.
  • Travel Restrictions and Office Shutdowns: The impact of the covid-19 coronavirus on the offshore industry has been such that almost every second offshore company across the world has imposed travel restrictions on its employees and has asked them to work from home. Companies have shut down offices and asked workers to work from home, wages unhindered, and those that have opened their office facilities to workers are now going out of their way to screen them as per the guidelines issued by the local health authority. Travel guidelines differ from city to city depending on the number of people residing there and after due consultation with local experts.
  • Air Travel Has Gone Down Considerably: Covid-19 has brought upon the world unprecedented reduction in air travel. Since this has happened, there has been a notable increase in real-time tracking of vehicles and the use of Internet of Things has also made it possible to monitor feeds of passengers. Monitoring feeds of passengers are proving handy to check passenger travel histories in order to identify whether the passenger needs to be quarantined or not. Lots of companies around the world are also using drones as another mode of transportation in order to deliver essential supplies and food deliveries.
  • Healthcare Will Record Higher Investments: Now that the world knows where it stands after all the deaths caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the healthcare sector is going to witness investments by various Governments at an unprecedented level, something that has never been seen before. IoT has found its way in the healthcare sector as well, and has made its presence very strongly felt in the form of various apps such as telemedicine, connected imaging, in-patient monitoring, medication management, connected health and worker, connected ambulance etc. Telemedicine is a powerful IoT powered application that facilitates remote patient monitoring, interactive medicine, in-patient monitoring etc.
  • Software Will Be in Demand: During the forecast period, the software segment is being spoken of as the vertical that is all set to hold a larger market size. A rise in Covid-19 cases has resulted in IoT software solutions taking a substantial hit. Operations in other IoT verticals such as manufacturing, transportation, travel and hospitality have been put on hold. In the middle of this pandemic, organizations seem to have changed their priorities, in the sense hat they want to monitor the health and wellness of their employees as they must be working from home during this time of strife. For this, they will rely on software to the greatest possible extent. The growth of software will be felt in other verticals as well such as logistics, transportation, manufacturing etc.
  • Scalable and Flexible Solutions Sought: Since most service providers have either shut shop or laid people off, Indian companies are being preferred for being able to deliver solutions that are both scalable and flexible. Even during a total lockdown in times of a global pandemic, Indian companies are still able to deliver solutions that are helping companies scale their businesses up and down as per requirement and their flexible solutions are giving to them the liberty they need in order to do so as per their convenience.

This is how Covid-19 has impacted the world and especially the offshore sector in general. Industry in general has been impacted very badly and with forced lockdowns all over the world, people are left with no other option but to work from home and deliver accordingly. There are a few sectors that will experience massive investments but that too is likely only once the effects of this pandemic subside and life resumes as normal across the world, which has already seen thousands of fatalities.

Shaun Singh Mahil is the Director of Virtual Employee Private Limited, a remote staffing & tech MNC, and is responsible for leading a team of more than 1200 experts from domains like IT, Content Creation, Digital Marketing, Designing. A law graduate from Brunel University, Shaun has been instrumental in creating a business model which is increasingly being seen by industry peers as a model for new organizations in the tech outsourcing domain.

Offshore stock photo by Nik Symkin/Shutterstock