Priya Behl, Senior Consultant at Focus Softnet Qatar
The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to have a pervasive and deep-rooted impact of varying degrees affecting and transforming almost every sector of the economy across the world, including Qatar.
However, Qatar, which has been already investing heavily over the years as part of its long-term vision in diversifying and transforming the economy, is well-positioned to overcome the situation, said an industry expert.
“Qatar seems to be well-prepared to adapt the environment with having in place an advanced medical infrastructure and faculty, upgraded technology, robust economic fundamentals, high human development index and self-sufficiency in food supplies, especially in diary, meat and poultry products,” Priya Behl, Senior Consultant at Focus Softnet Qatar, told The Peninsula in an interview.
Behl, who specialises in software development & implementation, added that under current situation globally as well as in Qatar, there will be short time impact on trade and ecommerce and performance of businesses due to restricted movement across all sectors, but eventually demand would rise. “These restrictions due to lockdown would definitely encourage use of IoT, AI and digital wallets among masses to ease off the work backlog, online shop, and merchant pay in the market as it might be need of the hour.” She said that COVID-19 is indeed transforming every sector’s functioning and working style, especially the banking, finance, healthcare and civil aviation. They are gearing up for stricter measures in terms of digitization, liquidity, hygiene, health infrastructure, faculty need, air travel passenger health condition screening and audits.
Behl believes that the new working environment will build up further pressure on companies and governments to invest more to meet these demands. “These measures trouble both local and global platforms which temporally hold back economic growth.” “I genuinely feel COVID-19 surely affects economic conditions and business models across the globe with restricted movements, production halts, restricted business transactions, global air travel restrictions, capital market nose-diving, country-wide lockdown, supply chain shattering, load on health sectors to gear up with infrastructure demands, impact on set financial budgets which eventually affects all walks of life, especially the economic position of the country due to pandemic.”
She noted that the pandemic has been a particularly distressing time for small and mid-sized (SMEs) businesses which are facing a little uncertain future. However, she also expressed her optimism that with the timely support of financial assistance and change in business strategies will help rebound, and things will get back to normalcy.
“We should expect that the Covid-19 crisis will change our businesses and society in important ways. It is likely to fuel areas like online shopping, online education, and public health investments, for example. It is also likely to change how companies configure their supply chains and reinforce the trend away from dependence on few mega-factories. When the urgent part of the crisis has been navigated, companies should consider what this crisis changes and what they’ve learned so they can reflect them in their plans”, she said.
