Covid-19 and its impact on our future life

“In every adversity lies the seed of an equal or greater opportunity” today I like to start from Mr. Napoleon Hill’s quote. Now in Bangladesh corona virus making its storm but there are some good things in business is coming as well. You may be surprised to hear this, but the truth is - this virus is going to stay for a while with us,  it will force us to change some habit and adopt us to adjust in some new rule of life, the most encouraging is we are the nation of fighters and very addictive in nature, no odds can fight with us for long time, till now, our low-income people will be affected more from this impact of virus as government took the very vital and quick steps on this, we will surly win the battle against this corona virus. Now let us see how this corona virous is going to impact of our future business and life habits.

Everyone will have disaster fund: In our country, the normal practice in poor people to middle class cannot save money for the future, as they have very tight limited income, from this event of uncertainty, Most of our poor to middle class population will be more intent to keep some disaster fund from this time in home, like as cash in hand, if the virus period is long the disaster fund may be for minimum 3 months or more, people will be more serious and intend to keep some money in home as a disaster fund. This is one of the lessons from this corona virus. People will be more interested on saving money from now or after this corona virus issue. Even the businessman will think to have some disaster fund for the future. This will make our people more equipped to fight the next threat efficiently.

Keep food as backup for future consumption: Bangladesh people have the old habit of saving food in their houses, especially in village, the old fashioned way of saving paddy of rice and many other dry food in a storage, the very renowned  named (Gola – in Bangla language), this current time, in very few house we find this kind of storage in village area, from now onwards, People will be more wished-for to keep some food in house, minimum 2 months basic food like rice and others long lasting food will be kept for long time. This will give confidence to people for the future.

People will give focus on cooked food in home: There is one habit already in urban population, go to the restaurant and have food, even in some social occasions also spend in the restaurant. Now, people will be more careful to go for the commercial food places and will be particularly interested to have food cooked in home. Social occasions will be little limited and mostly it will be done as home based, maximum people will tend to prefer the home-made food over communal food.

There is a possibility to develop the dry food, container food or processed industry: Bangladesh is a land of sessional fruits, Bangladesh mango is very famous outside the country as well, during the session, there are many cheap fruits in Bangladesh (unbelievable cheap price) mango, jackfruit, pineapple, tomatoes and many others, in this particular case, may have the possibility to grow this dried and packed fruit industry in Bangladesh. This corona virous let us learn in hard way, not to waste food and preserve it for longer period. We may have preserved and find alternative ways of keeping perishable food for longer period. if we want, we can even make different way’s for meat and fish also. Different country is doing this already. We may have the example from this developed country, learn from them and execute it quickly.

There will be and keen possibility on increasing demand on the cold storage and food preservation capacity: Now in Bangladesh have progress on the potatoes storage, especially in the north of Bangladesh, but this storage system and capacity need to explore all over Bangladesh. in Bangladesh from the private sector and from the government, we will hope to see the more initiative on large amount of food preservation capacity increase in Bangladesh. This will in crease our own capability on food dependency and can export some of the food items which can help to increase the export.

Food supply chain from farmer to consumer: This corona virous will change some ways of the food supply chain from the farmer to consumer. In our country there are some layers as middleman, and it creates a high impact on price increase. There is a possibility of this supply chain will go somehow online and people will get fare price. This is one of the possibilities to change the way of food supply chain industry in Bangladesh works now. It will eventually help the farmers to get the right price of their products.

We will see a boost in refrigerator business: there is a high possibility we may see a boost in the refrigerator business. As people will try to keep some food in the city life the most convenient way is refrigerator, people will be more expected to buy the refrigerator and this business will have possibility to sharp increase in near future. 

People will be more concern about personal protective equipment: There is a high possibility of people will be very much concern about their personal protection and safety on work, specially safety issue, like as hand sanitizer, face mask, and PPE kind of equipment and others. In near future, related to this kind of product industry will have a possibility to grow quickly in Bangladesh. People will be more envisioned to use more bar soap or hand wash in home or in work. Factories, corporates, and others will be more focused on the worker personal hygiene and this will open the door for this personal hinge industry. 

Social distance will become a usual habit:  People will try to avoid the gathering, and keep distance from other people, handshake and embracing will be less and will become safer way, which is our very normal habit as Bangladesh people. This will eventually change some siting (decoration) arrangement of the office and workstation in the factory. Though it is exceedingly difficult in the service industry but this social distance we must practice from now and it will continue for long time. 

Telemedicine and mobile hospitals will be the demand for time: Telemedicine is still not that popular yet, but this is the time it seems we cannot ignore it anymore. There is a high possibility of growth of the telemedicine and hopefully the private sector will come forward and take advantage of the telemedicine. We will see, the growth and development of the mobile hospitals and its necessity eventually. 

There is a possibility of increase of ecommerce: After the SARS virus many people observe the development of the ecommerce, buying habit will change a lot and Bangladesh also have a chance to develop the ecommerce. All the digitalization in the buying and sailing will start and it will have a good impact on retail business system. 

Possibility of Home office: The change will start form some job actually no need to come to office regularly, There is a high possibility of  home office will be a popular concept for everyone who have the options of working from home, tools like ding talk, Tencent office, wechat, skype and many others will be a good tool to use and acknowledge.  We will see the possibility, if someone ware a sunglass and get into a meeting or a board room, this will be a tool for us to separate and make the social distance more effectively. This will not be easy job for the service industry. But gradually there will be some change. 

Medical supplies, medical education, and hospital: Bangladesh will have an opportunity to have medical university and more hospitals with isolation center and extended ICU facility. Medical related business and possibilities of services will have a boom in the future, doctors may become the new superhero of the society.

Digitalization on money transaction: This is already happening in Bangladesh in limited scale for buying things, but it has the potentiality to grow more in digital money transaction. People will feel more safer on non-transaction of physical money.

Possibilities of online education:  Everyone can access the education facility does not matter the location anymore. There is a possibility of anyone can develop one platform like YouTube and all the classes video can be uploaded in the platform and that platform can serve as an educational hub for all the students of different grade. Or at least it will aid to all students for more knowledge sharing. 

This corona virus will surly drive a change in our life and habit, this is all assumptions and predictions may not necessary to change like this said way, but there will have some force change for sure, now it depends on us, how quickly we can adopt the change and make ourselves improved along with the change. We hope soon the medicine will come along with the vaccine. But still human history is full of challenge from the nature and others. We always fight and overcome the challenge. The planate is here for billions of years, it will be same as before now we need to adopt ourselves quickly and very efficiently.

Writer: Anower Sadath Kabir – Sales advisor, vivo mobile phone Bangladesh.


Dhaka/Sony/Nasim