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 Plans for actions no longer valid.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