Cognizant head of industries for Australia and New Zealand, Gaurav Sharma said Australians are already spending more time online than usual, and as Click Frenzy drives traffic to websites, retailers must facilitate smooth e-commerce experiences.

After the coronavirus pandemic, the world will be quite different. Whether the lockdowns last weeks or months, very little will remain unchanged. In a bid to contain the spread of Covid-19, governments around the world have instituted health monitoring policies, leveraging GPS and other data from a variety of personal devices.

Having visibility of your own skills, including level of expertise allows you to be aware of your evolution and measure your growth, your professional profile. You set your goals to develop autonomy, and measure… While making constant, incremental improvements.

Premankur Roy Paladhi shared these recommendations: “To cope with the coronavirus pandemic, consumer goods and retail organisations need a robust business continuity plan (BCP), one that is based on a holistic supply chain strategy and built on flexible and strong digital foundations. Any BCP should anticipate disruptions and provide proactive recommendations to keep pace with fluctuating demand and fulfilment cycles.

Countries around APAC are starting to phase slowly back into normalcy with additional safety measures like COVID-19 tracking apps for citizens. However traditional businesses have had to adapt to new realities of a post-virus world and the implications for CIOs will be profound. The days of the IT department being responsible for infrastructure and operations, with a relentless focus on cost reduction, are gone.

In a recent report forecasting life after the virus, Cognizant's Center for the Future of Work envisioned the creation of a massive Health Security Agency that would mandate automated illness scanning for any building, space or country.

“5G will help realise the benefits from the evolving IoT environment, including the development in endpoint devices such as environmental and situational sensors, vehicles, wearables, drones, robots, and virtual reality equipment,” says Rohit Gupta, vice president and head of manufacturing, logistics, energy and utilities, Europe at Cognizant.

“Inclusive leaders recognize the realities of what it means to work virtually and the need to be flexible," says Ben Pring, Director of Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work.

Cognizant CEO Brian Humphries says the restructuring done last year has helped the company lay the path for M&As and a better standing in the cloud technology market, despite a difficult business climate this year due to Covid-19. Edited excerpts of an interview with ET.

In a Q&A, Brian Humphries says his firm has handled the ransomware attack well and doesn't see any impact on client engagement.