As the world is drifting through the time of COVID-19, business survival and sustenance has become a topic of concern for entrepreneurs around the globe. Business owners are adapting technological tools to ensure the safety of their employees, expedite information distribution, and maintain supply chain among other business operations.

Following are some examples of how technology plays a role in business survival during COVID-19:

• Facilitating Remote Services: Technologies such as VPN (Virtual Private Network), collaboration tools, cloud conferencing, video calling, etc. have facilitated businesses to encourage and manage remote services. Employees can easily work on projects from their home to continue smooth business operations. Project management tools allow businesses to work on team projects in a seamless environment.

• Ensuring Employee Health: For businesses, who are resuming operations at their physical location, employee health is a major concern. However, technology advancements such as full-body scanners and thermal imaging systems allow businesses to detect abnormal body temperatures to identify individuals with probable infection. This allows customer and employee screening for reducing the chances of spread of infection.

• Online Learning: Businesses involved in learning (educational as well as vocational) are taking advantage of technology for providing online learning experience. Conferencing tools such as Microsoft Teams, have built dedicated online learning platforms.

• Enabling Contactless Movements: Supply chain is an integral part of any business. It is required to procure raw materials or deliver tangible products/services to the customers. However, the fear of infection is highly prevalent during COVID-19. In this scenario, technology has facilitated contactless movements. It has helped in managing delivery channels as well as easy movement of employees. Self-driven vehicles, online payments, and digital wallets have helped in creating a contactless delivery ecosystem.

• Reaching New Customers: Building a customer base is the foundation of business survival. Digital marketing plays an important role in allowing businesses to reach out to new customers in a time where physical marketing is not possible. Creating relevant digital content and sharing it on digital platforms help businesses in conveying information about their products/services to a wide consumer base.

• Customer Service Responsibilities: Amid COVID-19, consumers have large number of queries related to business operations, revised policies, delivery options, payment modes, etc. Chatbots are helping businesses in providing automated responses to these queries. This allows businesses to manage the high flow of queries in an efficient manner. Some tools allow businesses to adopt an integrated approach where a human agent can step in, if a consumer needs special attention.

For more information on role of technology in business survival during COVID-19, call Centex Technologies at (972) 375 - 9654.          

The advent of new technology has proven to be very helpful in combating diseases, especially pandemics such as COVID-19. If applied properly, technologies such as IoT, AI, and Big Data Analysis can be used to decelerate the propagation of the pandemic and avoid global health crisis in the future. Another technology that can be of immense help during a pandemic is ‘Connected Devices’.

Some applications of connected devices during a pandemic are:

• Monitoring Of Trends: Wearable devices, such as fitness bands, are widely being used for monitoring data such as activity, heart rate, sleeping patterns, etc. The data collected by these devices is continuously sensed and uploaded to the cloud. A thorough analysis of this data can help in the timely and accurate detection of trends that may be indicative of a population-level outbreak of any disease.
• Changing Patient Care Habits: A major concern during fighting a pandemic is to minimize contact with an infected carrier. Thus, isolation of patients is an important preventive action needed to control the spread of the pandemic. Connected devices such as thermometers, blood pressure monitors, glucometers, inhalers, etc. can help the patients in sending their health stats to the health care providers without the need of visiting the clinics. This reduces the risk of exposure. As these devices can be connected over a cellular network, patients can update their data from any location, regardless of the availability of WiFi coverage. Additionally, connected out-of-box cellular-based devices do not require the patients to have any knowledge of setting up a LAN/PAN connection.
• Quarantine Compliance: Smart cellular wristbands can be used to monitor the patients quarantined in their homes. These smart cellular IoT wristbands are small in size and have long battery life. The ability of these IoT wristbands to connect over a cellular network facilitates them to function independently from the patient’s smartphone. This helps the city management in ensuring that the patients are complying with quarantine rules.
• Improving The Reaction Time: Reaction time is a key factor in combating any pandemic. However, the timely reaction needs timely monitoring of symptoms and detection of contamination chains. Connected monitoring devices can help organizations, airports, malls, etc. in the effective and timely monitoring of people. These devices can also help in efficient monitoring of remote patients by healthcare professionals. This will help in the early detection of a pandemic resulting in reduced reaction time.

For more information on the key role of connected devices during a pandemic, call Centex Technologies at (972) 375 - 9654.