Ever since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, measures have been put in place to prevent its spread, some of which are set to drive a spike in the usage of tech-based solutions.
However, regardless of the larger problem at hand, businesses have had to find means to continue amid disruptions that have brought the global supply chain to its knees or even brought about questions regarding the traditional way of handling work. In here comes remote working.
Many tech companies have responded to the crisis either by highlighting what their products have to offer to help mitigate the risk of spreading the coronavirus, others have even taken further steps to discount them to enable people to cope with the situation.
A case in point is Uganda’s telecom companies that have waived mobile money transaction fees to enable people go cashless, ISPs that have now zero-rated certain productivity services over their network among others.
They’re not alone, here are tech-based services that are most likely to see a spike in usage amid the Covid-19 outbreak as social distancing takes center stage.
Instant messaging services
Whereas the average person is accustomed to the likes of Whatsapp, Messenger, iMessage among others, to the corporate world, it’s all Slack, Microsoft Teams, Skype For Business among others.
These serve almost the same purpose as the consumer-facing IM messengers but designed specifically to power different businesses to enable internal communication, host meetings, share documents among others. Already some of these services like Teams have experienced outages as the business world goes remote due to high traffic.
Digital payment services
These are quite many but the most prevalent one in Uganda is mobile money. Some reports tend to suggest that cash is one medium through which coronavirus can spread but how better to check this than go cashless? This could partly explain why telecoms have gone ahead to remove fees on their mobile wallets. Banks have followed suit and also given prominence to services that deviate away from physical cash like internet & mobile banking for payments.
If this trend is to continue, anticipate adoption of mobile payment services like MoMo, Airtel Pay, Contactless payments like Tap & pay among others.
Work from home internet bundles
As I write this, the telecoms have already rolled out internet bundles to aid people to work from home. Others have gone ahead to zero-rate the most used business services like Office 365, Zoom, Google Meet, Teams among others. This is only expected to grow with more services added or even bundled subscriptions to aid remote workers.
Streaming
With social distancing being one of the most pronounced preventative measures, this comes as a no surprise. Once people start working from home, they’ll need distractions to take away boredom and thus the need for entertainment. Entertainment that can be delivered conveniently and this calls for streaming and the likes of YouTube & Netflix are there to fill the void.
Mobile app downloads, especially games
Still, as is the case with streaming, not everyone has the said apps or services on their mobile devices. To those that don’t have, the majority will download them whereas those already with them, usage is expected to grow.
The same can be said of entertainment apps with gaming in the lead to kill off boredom not forgetting socializing with peers.
Social Networking
Social networking is a norm these days but oftentimes, the 9-5 work routine stops some people from constantly engaging with it. Now with remote working becoming the norm, anticipate usage for apps like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp among others to climb.
Social networks have overtime proven to be news sources on anything affecting not just our immediate communities but the world at large. People will run to them to check out news regarding the coronavirus pandemic.
However, with misinformation on the horizon, not everything you read or see is factual. It’s imperative that you take extra steps to read-only fact-checked materials that social networks like Facebook are striving to give prominence especially from influential sources like WHO or Health Ministries among others.
