How Will Coronavirus Impact Technology Investment Across Verticals?
Across industries, organizations around the world are feeling the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on their operations. While many end-user organizations are facing an immediate slowdown, some industries will see increased technology investment in the long term as businesses look to recover and leverage technology to improve their resiliency.
Smarter With Gartner asked our analysts about the impact that COVID-19 will have on technology investments across industries including banking and securities, education, government, healthcare and retail.
Investment services shifts to remote work
The banking and securities industry has experienced significant volatility since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, particularly in investment services. As we saw with the closure of the New York Stock Exchange trading floor, it’s likely that electronic trading will become more prevalent. Roles that have always been delivered from an office location due to security and compliance concerns are now being considered for remote working.
This shift will require significant technology investment over the long term. Technology and service providers selling surveillance and compliance tools have a huge untapped market in investment services. There will also be a need for SaaS office applications and unified communication tools that enable the markets to run successfully remotely.
Governments prioritize emergency-related investments
COVID-19 has amplified the need for government leaders globally to quickly mobilize resources to respond to, mitigate and recover from crisis situations. Emergency-related investments will be prioritized in the short to midterm, as governments focus on mitigating the outbreak and maintaining essential public services.
These investments will include website content management, cloud services and other public communications infrastructure, as well as mission-critical applications for public safety, emergency management and disease surveillance. In the longer term, government organizations will likely accelerate investments in digital public services, scalable IT and communications infrastructures, predictive data analytics and artificial intelligence.
Healthcare delivery organizations lean on telemedicine
Currently, most healthcare delivery is done through face-to-face meetings. The advent of COVID-19 is putting pressure on hospitals and government agencies to quickly embrace alternative models like telemedicine as an option for delivering care. Telemedicine can be beneficial as a first consultation on virus expectation, and can also help reduce the burden on hospitals for monitoring and caring for patients in quarantine.
As such, digital health solutions could see an immediate investment impact during the coronavirus crisis. Technology and service providers should accelerate efforts to showcase the benefits of their telemedicine and virtual care solutions to healthcare delivery organizations. Investment in these systems will be dependent upon the ability to quickly integrate data and ensure compliance with local regulations and laws.
Retailers refocus on online sales and digital strategy
The retail landscape has undergone profound changes in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. Thousands of global and national brands have shuttered stores, while simultaneously, online sales gathered steam. However, retailers also face supply chain shortages stemming from volatility in consumer demand, slowed production activity and bottlenecks in transportation of goods.
As e-commerce sees increased sales in the near-term, many retailers will revisit their digital strategy and investments. We expect to see an increase in technology investments that enable retailers to provide consumers with a compelling omnichannel retail experience. To overcome supply chain challenges, technology and service providers should also steer investments in use cases for artificial intelligence and machine learning spanning core supply chain planning, forecasting, inventory and merchandising functions.
The original article by Gartner's vice president analyst Moutusi Sau, senior director analysts Irma Fabular and Lisa Unden-Farboud, and Sandeep Unni is here. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CDOTrends. Photo credit: iStockphoto/Bulat Silvia
