In the beginning of 2020, case of SARS-CoV-2 was identified in China and later known as COVID-19. As a contagious disease, it is spreading all over the world and lead us to the pandemic state. The government has instructed us to obey social and physical distancing protocol to minimize the virus transmission. In addition, some countries even went on lockdown. Above all, COVID-19 affects simple thing like our habit of washing hands to complex thing, like the fourth industrial revolution.
Since the pandemic breakout, we unconsciously help to accelerate fourth industrial revolution by increasing utilization of more digital processes. On that assumption, let’s see how the industry has been adapting with the situation!
There are 3 main impacts of COVID-19 to 4th industrial evolution according to data collected by World Economic Forum:
Acceleration of digitalization (84%)
Digitalization is the implementation of digital technologies which was born through conversion of analog to digital, or digitization. The implementation process is aiming a change and deeper evolution of work and business model. Moreover, the process is accelerated by the pandemic in a big percentage of total respondents.
The acceleration done by the COVID-19 pandemic affects business in the use of digital processes more in this industrial revloution. For example, video conference to do meetings and classes, cloud storage to save and share data, and online calendar for organizing online meetings. There are even businesses that try keeping track of employers’ health through smartphone’s application.
There are so many implementations of digitalization that helps us through this pandemic. With the increasing needs of digital processes more as we are staying home, software and application developers are competing in finding and providing us what we need.
Working remotely (83%)
Since the growth of digital transformation, working remotely has been accessible. Now, it is not just being accessible, it is even mandatory for some people now that we are in a pandemic. Technology has been helping the shift from office working to remote working. An expected change, but it happens earlier as an impact of COVID-19 pandemic.
Acceleration of automation (50%)
Increasing automation system in industry has been one of the goals of fourth industrial revolution. It is the implementation of technologies to produce and deliver manufacturing products with minimal human intervention. Companies’ start accelerating the adoption of this technology in the beginning of pandemic because the shift to remote working affirms the need of this adoption.
COVID-19 pandemic has caused us devastating impact. However, its impact on accelerating the growth of digital transformation and technology development will play a great role in upcoming years. Future development and growth is about easy access of the information, optimal development, implementation and usage of technology.
source: World Economic Forum