THE DIGITAL BENEFICIARIES OF THE PANDEMIC: LONG-TERM WINNERS OR A BUBBLE?

The global pandemic has radically adjusted the strategies and tactics in most industries, their business models, financial performance, capitalization and growth prospects. The pandemic has resulted in a global recession. However, the list of industries benefitting from the situation is quite broad. It includes entire industries (e-commerce, online learning, online delivery, OTT services and games, pharmaceuticals, telemedicine) and individual areas within industries. For example, while Russian IT market as a whole is expected to drop 8.2% by the end of 2020 in dollar terms, according to IDC analyst company calculations, such areas as cloud services, information security, video conferencing, secure remote access solutions, customization and custom software development, technical support, IT outsourcing and consulting, will clearly show growth. Companies from various sectors are demonstrating increased interest in this kind of IT solutions. At the same time, a number of industries whose services enjoyed high demand (e.g. telecom operators) could not benefit financially from the situation due to even higher growth of infrastructure development and maintenance costs and peculiarities of tariff pricing. The great increase in the popularity of OTT services translated into new users, but due to socially determined steps this did not result in a proportional increase in revenue.

Issues for discussion:
• Who are the real beneficiaries of the pandemic in the long run?
• Which solutions and business processes will survive the pandemic and stay with us forever?
• Should we expect a rollback to pre-crisis levels after the restrictions are lifted in those industries that did not have an alternative for development?
• Will we see digitalization continuing forward at a steady pace, or will the process stagnate?
• Online solutions for B2B and B2C markets: which offer a greater potential post-pandemic?