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 Plans for actions no longer valid.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
The Trucking Industry, as a key part of the wider Supply Chain and Logistics Industry is coming to the end of an era, right at the time when it should be being refreshed. Put simply, there just aren’t enough drivers for trucks, and to date, attempts to recruit more drivers have been less that what…
Read More >In case you haven’t had time to keep up with these events, here’s a quick overview of the Everyday Sexism project’s attempts to hold FaceBook to account for its explicit support of sexual violence against women as portrayed in the many permitted Facebook pages that promote rape, rape culture, and violence against women. Facebook appears…
Read More >Today I have a bee in my bonnet, so please look away if my frankness might bother you. In the last couple of days I’ve had yet another conversation with a Local Council planning team manager about Strategic Planning for their Council that bothered me a great deal. What really has me bothered is that…
Read More >Whilst many people have heard about Drones in terms of their military applications, the concept of micro drones and their use in civilian settings is not quite so well known. It appears that the surveillance capability that technologies like Drones provide, are edging their way into more social environments. That may or may not be…
Read More >The link below will take you to the audio of the discussion I had with Annie Gaffney on ABC Radio Sunshine Coast the day after the Opposition released its Broadband policy. There’s been much discussion about the perceived value or otherwise, and I flag my bias here upfront: As a small business owner likely to…
Read More >In the article I link to below, Diana G Oblinger, the President of EDUCAUSE offers the Higher Ed community some insights such as this one: we’ve moved on from the Information Age and are now in the Connected Age. Such a statement will come as quite a shock for many Higher Education Institutions and policy…
Read More >In case you haven’t heard, technology is making so many jobs redundant, that only the adaptable will survive. And when I say ‘jobs redundant’ I mean across EVERY conceivable industry and level of specialisation. Robotic surgery is now so good that not only can it be done remotely, it can be done without human intervention.…
Read More >Coca Cola, Lion Nathan and Schweppes have successfully challenged the Northern territory’s compulsory container deposit recycling scheme in the Federal Court. The scheme had seen recycling rates jump by 30% in just a few months and was widely applauded by the public as the right thing to do. Despite the overwhelming public support, Coca Cola…
Read More >If you’re looking for an accelerated course in Strategic Planning and Advanced Management techniques in the Philippines in July, then TruEventUs has a two day session coming up on the 4th and 5th of June. Marcus Barber, founder of The Australian Strategic Planning Institute will facilitate this intensive program. For full details You can…
Read More >Without putting too fine a point on it, most of us pay little attention to what we ‘deposit’ in our toilets each time the body needs to exit our bodily waste. And yet with a looming phosphate shortage around the world (along with other useful components) our personal waste streams are worth billions of dollars…
Read More >