Office Atmosphere

With people working from home, a number of tech companies suggest that this may continue indefinitely. It's likely that companies may have the opportunity to reduce their office space with not all staff coming into the office at the same time. Those staff that work from home may only come to the office as and when required with 'hot desking' becoming more common - this will give corporate offices more of a 'co-working space' feel. Startups will now, more than ever, look to co-working solutions for their office requirements. In practice, a new tech startup could have all its team working from home and meeting at some convenient location as and when required - some serviced office companies allow you to book a meeting room by the hour.

Office space developers will need to re-think their future developments. Working from home will change the commercial real estate sector.

DigitalAsian

Contactless Commerce

Contactless commerce, or minimum contact commerce, will be the name of the game, moving forward. With countries now slowly opening up their economies, people will be thinking about how to conduct their work lives with the minimum of physical contact. From travel, supply chains, buying/selling real estate, etc., small businesses and large corporations will be setting up SOPs (standard operating procedures) for conducting all their activities that reduce the risk to health. 

We better get used to new ways of doing things.

DigitalAsian

Automating due diligence: growth in the service economy

Automating due diligence: growth in the service economy

When you buy a t-shirt or pair of shoes from an online marketplace, the marketplace gives some information about the products, you select your size, order and pay. When your product arrives, if it doesn’t fit, you return it and get a refund.

Buying services such as a ride from a ride-hailing app requires slightly greater due diligence – not necessarily because of the money involved but you want to be sure which driver is collecting you and in which car. Millions of people have gotten used to ride-hailing apps and even travel and booking apps for booking hotel rooms, flights, event tickets, food delivery, share trading, electrician etc. The due diligence for the buyer of such services has been automated and if there are any problems, there is some form of customer service provision to sort out any issues.

Another way to look at online marketplaces is that they are, in fact, automating due diligence to the satisfaction of the customer.

The amount of due diligence required when you buy a t-shirt is minimal. But when you buy something like real estate or IPR, the due diligence required is much greater as the consequences of getting it wrong are greater. Trying to automate the due diligence for such transactions is a lot more difficult as more regulation is involved. You have online platforms where real estate is advertised for sale/rent but the due diligence is carried out not on the platform but offline - if there are any platforms which do the due diligence themselves, would love to know.

Imagine buying a flat (just as you would a t-shirt) on a platform like Amazon. Getting to the stage where people are comfortable in e.g. buying and selling real estate or a restaurant on an online marketplace, with the due diligence and the transaction being carried out on the platform itself, will require more co-operation between the marketplaces and regulators so that the due diligence necessary can be automated.

Blockchain technology may play an important role in allowing due diligence to be automated and increase the service economy.

DigitalAsian

Cloud in the time of Corona

Cloud technology is probably the main digital technology, currently, under-pinning our lives and our battle against the pandemic.

Cloud and SaaS allows us to work remotely from home, communicate (messaging, calling, video conferencing), shop and much more. Cloud also helps scientists and health professionals to find solutions to our needs. Data centers are keeping us going.

Imagine if cloud technology was not there or just in its nascency.

DigitalAsian