How has Covid changed Globalisatin ?

We hear that Covid has disrupted the world over the past four months. How has it impacted globalisation ? Have the people of the world retracted or do they still have the urge to go out and take the world head on. This short article tries to understand this aspect of the Covid 19 influence on humanity. 

I am referring to a Harvard Business Review article of May 2020 by Steven Altman, Will Covid have a lasting impact on globalisation, which said that the Covid scare has 

1. brought down global merchandise trade by 13 - 32 % 

2. it has also brought reduction in Foreign Direct investment (FDI) by as much as 30-40% and

3. it has brought down international airline passengers by as much as 44-80%. Airlines were on average flying 90% less passengers on international routes and 62 % less seats on domestic flights.

Covid has brought about some impacts on the international community as can be seen from the below 4 points.

1. Though Covid bought about initial disruption globally immediately after the Covid outbreak in China and elsewhere, of late it has contributed to the healthy growth of international cooperation between organisations. Major global organisations and MNCs like Unilever are now making faster payments to their suppliers to help ease the suppliers problems.  Urgently needed medical supplies in different parts of the world are being delivered faster.

2. There is a debate happening between the concepts of redundancy and reshoring. While international diversification and global economic politics would warrant redundancy, reshoring essentially necessitates fostering self-sufficiency through nationalistic politics.  

3. Fracturing of global economy on regional lines would essentially lead to a more regionalised world

4. During this Covid time we also see great ongoing technological shifts that have been accelerated by Covid influence. An example is the massive personal banking that has shifted to the online domain across the world. Online learning has come to stay in the world as two of the past four months have seen international and national faculty and students taking up to e-learning software like MOODLE to e-conferencing software like Microsoft Teams, Zoom etc..   

Let's hope the post Covid period would bring the world together, allow faster transition and acceptance of technological developments across the world, though the negative aspects of regional thinking and nationalistic sentiments would be a negative factor.

George.. 

How can the overall scenario be improved during this covid cisis ?

Right in the thick of the Covid crisis, we all are unduly worried not about our jobs, but how long this uncertainty will continue to haunt us in the world. Being a virus, we have all come to realise and understand that one day or othe in the net ive to si months, we will also get infected, in spite of the greatest precautions and care we take to prevent an infection.

Aside from core healthcare sector, where one requires specialised medical education to treat patients, the people of the world can collaborate in many ways that can help bring down the treatment expenses for the ordinary citizen of the world. Given that we have infected only close to 11 million citizens of the world and there are 7800 million people on earth, herd immunity is a distant dream.  

Herd immunity can happen when close to 40% of the people of the world are infected, which is close to 3120 million people, 3.1 billion. Given that we have so far infected just 11 million people,  there are another 3109 million people remaining to be infected,  a very scary scene..

Manufacturing of ventilators is an area where lot of automobile manufacturing companies of the world are already into and helping ease the crisis of the world

Making personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare professionals - If one asks any healthcare professional, be it doctors or nurses or other paramedical staf who are right in the thick of treatment of covid patients, one of the greatest concerns they raise is the discomfort and distress the healthcare professionals undergo while they are inside the PPE for 4 or 6 hours as the case may be. The Engineering world can take up the challenge how to improve protection from pathogens by wearing less restrictive PPE and how can existing PPE be made more comfortable for longer wear duration. 

Presently India is having a Covid infection rate of 25,000 a day, almost half of US at almost 60,000 a day. Very soon we will overtake US and jump into the 100,000 cases per day list and not very late, into the 200,000 infections per day list too. Prof. Dr. Ashish Jha, Professor and Director of Harvard Global Health Institute in one of his interactions with Indian media mentions that Indian Covid infections will soon hit the 200,000 a day mark soon.

Managing new Covid centres and transporting covid patients from and to these Covid centres and from and between hospitals could be another area where public can help. 

We find the Corona virus is redirecting jobs. Hoe can we use the people who have lost their jobs to help rebuild the economy during Covid and post Covid is an interesting question. This was studied by Ravin, Tracey and Susan in April '20 issue of HBR in an article titled How the Corona virus crisis is redefining jobs.

The following three steps will help make the transition lot clear.

1. We need to make jobs portable across organisations. 

2. We should be able to automate jobs in an accelerated manner. 

3. We also need to explore the possibility of sharing employees for cross industry talent exchange.

This can help qualified, experienced and willing people find gainful employment post Covid and bring down the sky rocketing treatment expenses. 

George..

Strengthening and motivating employees during this covid crisis.

Just like employers feel jittery and insecure during crisis time, it is only natural that employees too feel anxious and apprehensive.

Communication is the act of conveying meanings from one entity or group to another through a media and the use of mutually understood signs, symbols, and semiotic rules.

The main steps in communication are as given below

• Motivation
• Message composition
• Message encoding
• Transmission
• Noise intrusion
  
• Reception
• Decoding and
• Interpretation    (wikipedia.org)
  

How well do we communicate with our peers, juniors, superiors etc is very vital for a successful career and life. It is more important and critial during this global; health crisis time.

While trying to understand what is passing through my colleague's and friends minds during this time by communicating and interacting with them over whatsapp, email and telephone has helped me to realise that during such crisis time, we need to communicate more frequently.

The communication should be in common commuunication channels and securely. One of the most secure communication channels these days people use is Whatsapp. Security of communication is vital as it can help sustain relationships and ensue nobody overhears whats being communicated.

The third most important constituent of effective communication between stakeholders is a safe and comfortable Work From Home (WFH) policy to ensure that the employees have all the hardware and items at home to help them communicated, or example, good laptops and high bandwidth Internet connections, safe, well lit and quiet place at home to work.

Very frequently we find even after providing all of the above facilities and conditions, employees still feel insecure. During this Covid crisis, employees are being fed news items daily on the accelerating nature of the spread of the virus. Employees are concerned about job security, whether after two months the company will be able to provide them with salary and whether they will be fired from their jobs. This is a very unsettling thought in the minds of all employees except maybe from the government sector in India and rest of the world where job security is guaranteed, come what may - rain or shine, virus or no virus.

As part of the communication strategy of the organisation and to reassure the employees of the true intent of the organisation, it needs to chalk out new development and growth plans for the future. This helps the existing employees to think of creative and positive ways in which it could contribute to the growth of the organisation in the future and to have the satisfaction of being able to contribute during dire times.

Very many organisations have been forced to close or wind up operations like in the service sector industries and people have lost their jobs in great numbers.

Organisations who are letting go of their employees need to ensure the employees are able to find alternative employment in as short time as possible and proactively help the employees regarding the same. This helps the employees to have a positive attitude towards the organisation and be ready to return to the parent organisation when the economic situation improves in the future. 

My thought process has been strengthened on the basis of the most recent research that has come out of Harvard Business School in this area from a 12 question survey handed out to 830 respondents in 10 for-profit, 10 not-for-profit and few governmental organisations in the US and published in HBR of July '20. Five tips for communicating with employees during a crisis.

Mutually motivating and friendly communications with good intent is the key during this Covid time to motivate and revitalise your employees to ensure they remain motivated, committed and useful to the organisation in the long run.

George..

The exciting story of Haier and my experience ..

When I was doing my engineering,  Haier was just waiting to happen ..👍 excellent 45 min youtube video story of Haier.. 👍👍

https://youtu.be/WK7mxBy1fNw

Every Bschool student should watch this video. How the firm belief to give ONLY the best product to the customer, whatever it may cost, transformed a company to be the world's largest white goods manufacturer. The story of QingDao Refrigerator company in China.

The CEO of Haier Zhang Ruimin, the person responsible for bringing the quality revolution in Haier, asking the employees of Qingdao refrigerator company who built 76 faulty refrigerators to destroy them in 1984 made big news. The cost of a refrigerator then was two yeas pay of an employee. Within 3 years by 1987, it was a sought after refrigerator company of the world. When GE wanted to buy it in the early nineties, Haier snubbed them by refusing a buyout.

Later in 2014 when GE Home appliances merger with Electrolux, did not materialise, GE turned to Haier in 2016, asking them to takeover GE Home appliances. Why, GE did not find it worthwhile continuing to be in the home appliances division, because aircraft turbines, medical equipment and finance were high in GE's radar than the ordinary refrigerator and washing machines white goods business.  The deal was for $5.6 billion. The competition from Korean companies was great, LG and Samsung.

The Rendenhai model where the company was divided into 60,000 Rendenhai, each trying to work on it's own entrepreneurship model, was changed by Kevin Nolan, the new CEO from GE, who divided the company into different businesses. After winning lot of laurels for bringing in innovation, the Internet of Things (IoT) fridge, connected with the other elements of the domestic ecosystem, was a big change for Haier, which in 2019 generated a revenue of Yuan 200 billion ($28.2 billion).  

Recently due to the heavy advertising Haier is doing in India, I bought a Haier top loading washing machine. This machine they claimed is assisted by AI, fuzzy logic. True to the word, compared to the earlier Godrej top loading automatic washing machine, this washing machine uses just half the water, washes neat, with effective rinse cycles and what not .. With Godrej to reduce the water consumption, we used to interrupt the cycle and carry out manual interventions.  

Just simple application of fuzzy logic which tells what is the washing time at the beginning of the wash cycle, the different washing movements etc is decided by the machine.

I am impressed how the Qingdao refrigerator company in 1980s has now transormed to become Haier with GE Household Appliances under it's wing, giving a run for the money for Korean competitors, LG and Samsung.  ..

George

Why have Indian and Chinese firms been growing very fast ?

Before the Covid crisis, we have seen great industrial growth both in the West and the East, the east being dominated by China and India. Throughout the middle of the twentieth century and the first two decades of the twenty first century, we have seen China and India grow from very poor economic environment due to colonialism to grow to the top three economies o the world.

During this period, the technological growth has been made possible because of licensing all the research and development from western countries to India and China.

There are three ways by which a company can grow, 

1. conduct internal research and develop knowledge on their own, 

2. by joining alliances and develop technology, which would be bit more faster than the first route and
3. by licensing this innovation and knowledge from the original developers. 

This has been proved true by research conducted in the Bio pharmaceutical industry by Solon Moreira and Thomas Mamillan and published in HBR June 2020.

Next time, an industry is at cross roads to decide how to develop using technology, the licensing route is much more economical and faster than the indigenous development route of developing technology.

George

WHO online courses on Covid 19 treatment ..

While discussing with one of my colleagues on how to make effective interventions in the Covid treatment scenario in our University,  it came upon me to learn something more about the Covid virus  treatment protocols  design of treatment centers etc. when I came across one of my friends speaking about World Health Organization (WHO) online courses.

WHO has been proactively involving itself, first with China, though it has been misunderstood very badly of late, to improve the awareness and preparedness of nations to meet the Covid 19 pandemic. There is no other international organisation like WHO that has the competitive ability to intervene across geographical boundaries to alleviate the harmful impact of the virus and to take effective steps to control the spread of the pandemic.

After downloading the OpenWHO app from Google store, I went through the courses being offered. Joined for the eProtect course and by Saturday evening completed. I found that this was one of the best ways to get authentic information about the virus and different treatments   there was no looking back. 

WHO DG Dr. Tedris Ghebreyesus Adhanom

By Monday 22 June morning 7.15 am, I had completed 4 WHO online courses. Certificate links given here with QR codes to assure the authenticity of the process.

1. Course 1 on eProtect Respiratory Infections

2. Course 2 on Emerging respiratory viruses, including COVID-19 :

methods for detection, prevention, response and control

3. Course 3 on COVID-19: Operational Planning Guidelines

and COVID-19 Partners Platform to support

country preparedness and response

4. Course 4 on designing a Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) treatment centre

5. Course 5 on Standard Procedure in hand hygiene 

6. Course 6 on Standard Precautions in Waste Management.

7. Course 7 on Environmental Cleaning and disinfection

8. Course 8 on How to put and remove PPE 

9. Course 9 on Decontamination and Sterilization of Medical Devices

10. Course 10 on Standard Precautions on Injection Safety and Needlestick Injury Management

The Kubler Ross grief cycle ..

The experience was unique.

Unfortunately these 6 courses never mentioned about the human stresses because of the Covid 19 infection and how to handle these stresses effectively.

The Kubler-Ross grief cycle (given here) is a curve that gives the various stages through which people pass when overcome with real grief (or anticipatory grief) .

Click here for the HBR article of Mar '20 here ..

According to me, the migrant worker population in India are already in the descending part of the KR curve, given that they were the first in the country to go back to their native states. The office going staff are slightly up, yet to face reality .. After reaching the native states the workers are relaxed but the feeling of what next and where next has gripped them.. They are in the process of descending the curve fast ..

Will awareness of the harmful potential of the virus help them to explore alternate ways to face the life-crisis ? Will people for the time being, turn to agriculture, as a means to improve their livelihoods and overcome the desperation ?

George 

A role play on Design Thinking at Alliance University ..

Design Thinking comprises of a set of skills by which one is able to solve complex design problems and come up with innovative practical and economical solutions.

Though the process has been developed by David Kelly of IDEO, Professor at Stanford D-school, IDEO CEO has come with an interesting article in HBR in 2008.  Click here for my earlier writing on a Design Thinking Workshop at AU.

This write up is regarding a classroom Design Thinking exercise we had with students of sem 3 MBA on 9 June 2020, through the online mode. These days because of the Corona scare, all classes are happening virtually online through the MS TEAMS setup in AU.

We started with the empathising phase, which involves everyone in the exercise introducing themselves with an introduction, which essentially is the narration of an unfortunate event in the life of the participant till that time. The main purpose of this step is to ensure that the participant is able to recollect realistic situations with the deep meanings in the expressions and narration.

We entered the definition phase by identifying the problem we were going to work on. The issue of traffic congestion in different parts of Bangalore city was the one that came to our mind. We decided to do a design thinking exercise to find out the reasons why traffic congestion is high in Silk Board junction in Bangalore and possible steps to counter it.

In the next phase of Ideation, we embarked on a Brainstorming exercise to find out possible means by which traffic congestion could be reduced at Silk Board junction in Bangalore.

The brainstorming session created about 18 ideas with 3 rounds of 6 teams each, and then we narrowed down into 3 top ideas.

In the Prototype phase, we thought about the different steps that could be taken up to get the plan implemented. Since providing good connectivity between Metro and BMTC was one of the final 3 ideas that came up, we decided to ask govt and BMTC, Metro etc to have dedicated teams that would work to improve the connectivity between Metro and BMTC across Bangalore.

One the Govt accepts our recommendations, we are sure the traffic congestion issue in Bangalore, Silk Board junction will be solved to come etxnet, at least. .