While a pandemic is bad for business, expect staffing, home networking, Internet access and online shopping to benefit from a pandemic. Conversely, with a sharp diminution of business, major enterprise purchases are likely to be put on hold. This would hurt servers, storage, large applications and middleware. We expect staff augmentation and project management companies to benefit, but this forecast relies on these companies to offset lost time by reassigning healthy staffers to the highest bidders.
In the event of a pandemic, we expect a large proportion of the workforce to remain at home and telecommute. This expectation calls for better-equipped home offices, security and virtual private networks (VPNs). With so many people staying at home, we expect that recreational Internet use and shopping would increase. If the pandemic became severe, staffing companies would benefit from higher prices as qualified labor became scarce.
Demand hit
Our PC forecast team expects that pandemics would dampen final demand. Some vendors--most likely the ones with online or telephone ordering--could benefit. For example, Dell sales increased in Asia during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus outbreak, because people were quarantined or stayed home.
With millions of employees working from home during a pandemic, an unprecedented level of voice and data traffic volumes will be placed on "consumer" telephone and cable networks for a sustained period of time. However, we have all recently witnessed how conventional wireline and wireless telephony systems fail to operate properly (or at all) during times of major communications demand precipitated by natural or man-made disasters. Yet, despite likely communications disruptions, the legal and fiduciary obligations of corporate officers and board members during a pandemic will not be suspended. Additionally, shareholders will bring lawsuits against executives and boards that fail to take all reasonable steps to ensure business continuity, given the amount of warning received prior to the pandemic.
Enterprises should take the following measures regarding purchase of goods and services:
' Directly oversee the installation of broadband services to the homes of the most-critical employees.
' Install backup broadband services for senior executives.
' Invest in a backup environment for e-mail traffic.
' Contract with an external provider for e-mail.
' Obtain satellite phones for executives, board members and critical staff.
' Negotiate preferential terms with an audio/videoconferencing provider.
' Decide whether to lease or buy in-house audioconferencing systems.
' Use Web conferencing with clients and suppliers.
' Obtain backup plans from external service providers, and negotiate for an appropriate level of service.
Our semiconductor research team believes that the risks from avian flu distract from more serious potential threats, such as a terrorist attack on an Intel or other large producer's fab. Many workers stayed home during the SARS outbreak and did more telecommuting and Internet shopping. This stimulated demand for electronics, much as we expect Hurricane Katrina recovery will for infrastructure rebuilding.
Several organizations have already made detailed preparations for a possible outbreak. The Hong Kong Hospital Authority manages a head office, 43 public hospitals and institutions, 45 specialist outpatient clinics, and 74 general outpatient clinics. According to its CIO, Andre Greyling, the Authority has already forecasted the change in bandwidth, traffic and infrastructure load within the IT environment. Greyling notes some areas, such as teleconferencing, were adequate and so did not need immediate expansion, while some other areas, such as remote workplaces, have had expansion so that their capabilities cover all essential supporting staff by providing them access to information via VPNs.
Gerard F Halleren is a Research Director at Gartner based in the US, Dion Wiggins is VP and research director at Gartner based in Hong Kong.