The pandemic began with its epicenter in China in 2019 and had been continuously spreading by then to all over the globe. So far, 216 countries and territories have been affected by COVID-19. The COVID-19 cases reached various countries that have strong dominance in the worldwide market and have adversely affected economic growth globally. The spread of coronavirus has led to severe disruption, such as a global recession. Many organizations are being forced to take stringent actions for their employees and staff, as small and medium businesses are being shut down, and manufacturing and production facilities are being put on hold for a longer period.
However, the demand for food and beverages witnessed huge growth, but this has increased the shortage of supply chain due to the panic among people. Similarly, the demand for the pharmaceuticals, chemical, and healthcare industry also increased as new solutions and medicines were introduced for preventive measures. There has been a disruption in the supply chain of many industries due to restrictions in logistics and the closing of manufacturing facilities. In addition, the slowdowns in the economy have lowered the spending capability of individuals, and people are saving money for emergencies.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the globe, there has been an unprecedented disruption experienced in the global economy and trade, as both production and consumption slide backward across the globe. The key industries of the world faced certain challenges during the pandemic, including documentation, productions facilities working with limited capacity and staff, key resources working remotely, virtual audits and inspections, and suppliers unable to meet requirements or demands, among others. Amid the disruption caused by the pandemic, world leaders realized the need to reinforce the continuity of their businesses by technological adoptions. The pandemic demonstrated the criticality of integrating the QMS with the organization’s business continuity plan. The spread of COVID-19 has made quality and compliance management even more critical. It allowed every organization to change how they organize their quality processes amid all the restrictions of working from home and social distancing. This increased the demand for quality management software in the market.
Long Term Strategy Adopted by Software Providers or Steps Taken
The pandemic is bound to bring new trends in the market, such as an increase of digitalization, automation, high adoption of e-commerce, and low dependency on human labor. The companies require taking a strategic decision to sustain their development in this pandemic crisis. Companies have delayed any acquisitions and cut short the capital expenditure to maintain their financial conditions. In addition, they also need to set the sales projection to limit their production and avoid any extra spending. Companies need to align their strategies with the changing market and develop technologies according to the changing trends of society. However, compliant quality management is important for regulating a company's continued ability to innovate new products, sustain growth and get to market quickly. But it requires the right systems and tools, and in today's highly competitive marketplace, paper-based processes no longer suffice. It has become essential that digital quality management system (QMS) software automates quality throughout the entire product life cycle to help companies navigate ever-changing regulations and standards, streamline processes, demonstrate compliance and make quality a true competitive differentiator. Thus, the companies need to capture the untapped market and focus on the organizations that are getting digitally transformed.
Impact On Demand
During the initial stages of the pandemic, industries in many domains were unprepared with policies and procedures for handling a disruption in the business of such magnitude. The operational practices in the industry faced major changes to adapt the new norms. In order to update their business policies, the business leaders were making drastic strategic changes to stay in the game. The industries faced challenges such as supplier quality issues, transition to remote working, flexibility in managing quality processes, and others. This increased the demand for solutions such as quality management software in the market to ensure business continuity amid such an uncertain period.
In the wake of COVID-19, organizations are making significant changes to audit management, employee training, document control, corrective actions, and change management.
For instance,
- According to the 2020 survey by ETQ, 42% of organizations say they’re increasing quality spending at an average rate of 21% to increase the agility of the quality management systems and ensure product quality and third-party compliances.
- According to a 2021 survey by CQI, the covid-19 outbreak has significantly impacted the business and quality improvement initiatives. Around 60% of the survey respondents said that integration of quality management systems into their businesses had been the key during the pandemic for keeping documents, policies, issues, and training requirements up to date.
The issues of remote work became important when it came to quality management during the pandemic. Quality professionals working remotely and tasked with monitoring product quality needed any process that relied on in-person interactions or physical documents needed to be redesigned. This increased the demand for quality management software in the market to enable remote document management, employee training, and preventive actions. During the pandemic, the number of onsite regulatory audits fell sharply, with many surveillance audits taking place remotely.
For instance,
- According to a 2021 research survey in Germany which surveyed 271 internal auditors, 24% of the annual audit plan had to be postponed, and 11% had to be canceled completely due to COVID-19. The rest of the audit plan had to transition to remote audits
The pandemic brought to the front the increasing need for virtual tools for processes through remote systems, and this increased the adoption of quality management software among enterprises to mitigate the risks of quality assurance in the market.
Impact on Supply Chain
Supply chains of multiple companies were disrupted in the COVID-19 period due to the lockdowns and reduced workforce. Major tech companies were able to sustain this disruption by technological advancements. Cloud computing technologies enabled companies to offer their products and services in the market without much hustle. Onsite services were impacted owing to the restrictions on movement. Thus the impact on the supply chain for companies engaged in delivering their products via cloud deployment was minimum.
The supply chain was quickly restored due to the increasing adoption of cloud-based services. The growth in cloud computing has brought a transformation in the digital industry, and therefore most software and services can be easily supplied on a cloud basis.
Price Impact
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected the prices of many offerings in the market. The prices of the end products mostly depended on the supply chain complications and fluctuating prices of the raw materials. The impact in the tech companies providing quality management software was minimum. The prices for onsite service and deployment were impacted during the pandemic due to the restriction on travel.
Conclusion
Quality management software (QMS) can help organize and build a quality management system that highlights customer health and safety. It allows the industries to prepare for new quality, safety, and compliance standards and seamlessly communicate changing protocols across multiple stakeholders and locations. Informed and empowered employees go a long way toward boosting customer confidence. With the very staples of quality being impacted, quality itself has been on the line. Disrupted industries that stayed on or have restarted their operations or are in the process of doing so scramble to conform to quality standards. Responding to COVID-19 has forced them to re-center their quality management to navigate to the new normal and emerge stronger on the other side.
The recent issues with the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the criticality of integrating the QMS with the organization’s business continuity plan. When government mandates were issued, leading to the shutdown of industries, leadership teams kicked their business continuity plans into high gear. High importance is being given to the quality of products, and thus, quality management software is being enrolled by the organizations for a complete product lifecycle.
