Welcome to the Post COVID-19 Digital Age

Dr. Martin Mwanje Lwanga

Many years ago, when I was a little boy, growing up in Kampala there used to be a place to see blockbuster movies called Drive- in Cinema. It was one of the top movie centres along with Neeta, Odeon, Delite and Norman Gordhino cinema halls. Whereas I visited all the others I never went to Drive-in for two reasons. It’s target market were the car drivers and I wasn’t one. I also know it’s price was above my kid’s range.

The other day I asked someone what happened to where it once stood and was told there is now a clearing and forwarding company. Indeed I soon drove past where it once stood down in Nakawa and all I could see where trucks.

The story of Drive-in Cinema and how it collapsed has some lessons for us today. Let’s begin by asking have people ever stopped seeing movies? Of course not! What happened is that over the course of years the format of driving to a movie park died.

Just recently the kids at home under lockdown wanted see our wedding which we taped. We got out the tape but there was a small problem. It’s still on VCR tape! Yet we have long changed our home entertainment system which is no longer compatible with VCR. I was told to upload it on DVD but someone said that the best way was to upload on cloud.

Today we are witnessing a change in the environment that is going to affect us and those that don’t seize the moment will be left behind like Drive-in cinema goers or VCR users. The one thing which we can’t deny is that COVID-19 has accelerated the coming of the digital age.

Of course we were already in the Information Age but COVID-19 has made it even more imperative for our survival. I was visiting the other day the lady where I get my fresh groceries. She is innovative. As a result of the lockdown she has got herself on an app where customers can order on line. Then she uses the boda-boda motorcycles to deliver. If she doesn’t do that her business will definitely collapse since people are stuck at home.
Do you know in the education realm there are many institutions that have gone on teaching during the lockdown including carrying out exams, through online platforms? There have hardly been affected. One friend whose UK based university long decided to embrace this on line model tells me that lately business has been booming beyond anything of their imagination.

None of us can avoid the digital age anymore. The other day I was passing some place and was amused to find that they were washing money with soap. I asked the reasons and was quickly told it was to kill the corona virus. Yet in China, today nearly 90 percent of all payments are digital, and that problem is quite insignificant.

All I am saying is that as we get out of the lockdown every business must sit down and analyze how its model has embraced the digital age. Must all those meetings be done physically or there are tools which one can use. Does one need to travel that much when video conferencing is available.

If your business is involved in selling can’t it access its customers on line and deliver to them at home?

As a student in the US I recall I used to go down on weekends to the corner shop to borrow movies from my favourite store. It was a chain called Blockbuster movie. At its peak there were about 9000 Blockbuster movie stores doing brisk business. But last year Blockbuster closed its last store. Why? Because no one needs to borrow a movie anymore which they can access at home by downloading on their computers.

It’s called embracing change which every manager must be skilled at to survive.