India’s Covid Surge has a Fat Tail for Australian Companies
As Covid19 variants continue to emerge, the cause of which can be fairly placed at a lack of social distancing and slow vaccine rates that allow ‘mixing’ of viral strains in social settings, India is on the brink of a healthcare collapse and the implications for Australian companies, especially in the tech sector, are huge.
Technology companies in Australia are going to be impacted by the disastrous human cost now ripping through India. With a new India Covid19 variant emerging and a healthcare sector on the brink of collapse, Australian technology companies that have outsourced software development and call centre operations into the subcontinent are about to discover the organisational cost.
The manufacturing sector discovered and is still impacted by supply chain collapse as China went into shut down. Having outsourced significant component aspects for almost a two decades, the shut-off caused by China’s near full shut down of key supply chain cities has been a massive wake up call for many manufaturers here in Australia. The lack of domestic supply, of in particular, key health consumables has also been a whack over the side of the head for Governments.
For the tech centre, India’s massive spikes in infections means that key personnel, subcontracted employees and Indian base suppliers may be lost to the pandemic, or at least sidelined. Projects in development will be delayed or lost. Plans for actions no longer valid. Cintingencies plans for such an outcome (not the ‘event’ of a pandemic but for an outcome of ‘denail of access to’) should have ALREADY been drawn up.
In my work with companies over the past two decades I know that many will be in panic mode and playing catch-up to strategic plans too thin on thinking and too limited in scope. Wildcard events would barely have drawn energy at the Board table or senior management room.
If you have operations in India you have no choice. You need to get ahead of where this is going and whilst there’s still a small window for options, go through that window. The Indian Government’s denial of the pandemic, it’s recalcitrance in taking action and following medical advice to minimise the spread, is a decision that now impacts your business. The question for many Board rooms right now is ‘what are we going to do about it?’
Here’s a great bit of coverage from Foreign Policy that I recommend
Sometimes when you look at enough assorted pieces of information a clear pattern emerges. In a previous role I was tasked with looking at the Future of Education, a topic I delved deeply into for almost 3 years. And in 2003 in a piece titled ‘The Future of Commercial Education’ I predicted that by 2015,…
Read More >Tomorrow I’ll be at the State Library of Victoria as part of the #V21 Digital Summit. In my futurist, pragmatist role I’ll be presenting few ideas about why ‘Your Future is NOT an App’, then later in the day facilitating an onstage debate about Disruption’s role in Innovation. And if it is anything to go…
Read More >I’ve been having a think lately about whether the use of Interest Rate movements by the Reserve Bank is actually too clumsy an instrument for effective economic management. The potential weakness has emerged only in recent times as the signs of a world-wide economic melt down have begun to expose one of the limitations of…
Read More >There’s a few problems with the successful leadership lists that bounce their way around the internet. In my opinion they lack context – the reality check that only comes by having a full appreciation of an individual organisation’s particular circumstances. Unfortunately many of these lists of ‘required leadership behaviours’ offer shallow quick fix advice that…
Read More >There’s no doubt that coal has a legitimacy problem with large swathes of the public around the world. Once a darling of energy and still in relative abundant supplies, Coal provides significant levels of energy per gram consumed. Yet the end outcome is now known to be incredibly harmful to localised communities needing to breathe…
Read More >At almost every stage in a shift in the way societies and organisations operate, there comes a period of extreme ‘unsettled-ness’. This period may show itself in the form of the doldrums (where things seem unusually calm but nothing seems to be happening) or in busyness (where there’s lots of activity but nothing seems to…
Read More >Sometimes when we have the chance to say something, we don’t. About two years ago one of my uncles died and I should have spoken at his funeral. This personal post is what I should have said to the public gallery that attended ‘Hi everyone. I’m Marcus and Jim was one of my three uncles.…
Read More >I’ve just posted a quick overview on LinkedIn called The ‘Loud Secret’ – Underestimating your internal skill sets which you can find at the link below The ‘Loud Secret’: Underestimating Your Internal Skill sets. If you have any troubles accessing the story let me know and I’ll see what I can do
Read More >Health Care costs in Australia are rising and are likely to continue doing so as our population both grows and ages. Which means attempts to address this issue are warranted. Equally warranted is an assessment of the impacts for addressing or ignoring the issue. If, as has been mooted, the Australian Government introduces an $8…
Read More >We’ve been getting far more effective at understanding the way our brains work especially as they relate to the idea of ‘mind’. Simply, the idea that we make decisions based on our conscious understanding, appears limited at best and highly flawed at worst. And now, the step towards longevity, perhaps even the fountain of youth,…
Read More >