Finally, we have made it to the edge of the cliff where a new future awaits us. The world will finally have to evolve, to fit itself into a newly-designed costume, which we as humans so painstakingly created in record time. With the onset of COVID-19 triggering a mad and chaotic global fight against the pandemic and we running aroundlike headless chickens with no clue of the virus’ potential impact on the current functioning of the human race on this planet, we are on a roller coaster to enter a new era.
As so blatantly visible, we have been forced to mend our ways and fall in line, when Nature claims its agency over its own resources. It is also evident that the socio-political and economic set-up will undergo a paradigm shift and we will have to quickly adapt to changes thrown at us without having anytime to reflect, think or strategize our next moves with the exception of a few. Governments, corporations, businesses and families are at the threshold of new and emerging dynamics, of which none of us have any clue.
We no longer will be able to conduct our businesses in the manner, which has any resemblance to the past. Traditional approaches and strategies will become obsolete and new trends will take its place. The only thing that will rule the economy and lifestyle of the new age, post COVID-19 is an atmosphere of universal fear. And as in the past, history will repeat itself and fear will once again be hailed as a driving force to recover markets and set the economy on its rightful track back to prosperity.
The top three industry sectors, which will unabashedly come forward to the rescue of a dying global economy, will be health, pharma / bio-pharma and allied sectors, insurance and the digital infotainment and service sector.
We are already seeing a surge in the stock ratings of many top pharmacy and insurance conglomerates all over the world. A publication by Pricewaterhouse Coopers titled ‘Global Pharma Looks to India: Prospects for Growth’ is an interesting study, which pegs a growth of 163 % in the bio-tech pharma industry in India to a whooping 50 billion USD in 2020 from 19 billion USD in 2009, just eleven years apart.
Global insurance giants have been successfully making inroads in various markets, including India, as was evident with the increase of FDI from 26% to 49% in 2015 and a hovering case scenario of capping it to 79% in the near future. It is also uncanny to watch LIC pulling up its socks and blasting the advertisement horizon in India amid this grim atmosphere of the pandemic.
The icing on the cake will be provided by the ‘rockstar’ of the millennium – the digital industry as we see a surge of many small and entrepreneurial start-ups in this sector. But the reins of the industry will still be held by the ‘superstars’ of the industry, the Googles and the Gates.
Though all of the above industry sectors will be relentless in their efforts to build a better future for the world with super hi-techvirtual combating capabilities of a newer kind, we will still have to surrender ourselves in their safe hands. Hopefully, this isn’t a classic case of conflict of interest.
