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Coronavirus to Accelerate China’s Digital Transformation

February 19, 2020

3:00

The coronavirus could result in strengthening China’s digital skills.

Will the coronavirus affect the Chinese economy in 2020? No doubt, but let’s take SARS for comparison. At the time of SARS, in 2003, China’s GDP level was 12 billion yuan. Today, 17 years later, this level has reached 100 billion yuan.

Eric Van Vaerenbergh

Business manager and lecturer at the Central School of Arts and Crafts (ECAM)


On this basis, China remains convinced that in 2020, regardless of how the epidemic develops, the impact on its economy will remain contained. Reading various Chinese economists, one could even conclude that the coronavirus will accelerate the transformation of the Chinese economy to digital. Several phenomena are at work in this direction.

1: “online shopping” vs “offline shopping”

With SARS, everyone was afraid to leave their homes. At the time, in 2004, Liu Qiangdong, the founder and director of JD.com, the second electronic commerce platform after Alibaba, had closed its physical stores from Zhongguancun to Beijing. Today, with the coronavirus, the same phenomenon is again observable and many stores are deserted. Only couriers will still deliver the various purchases made online to their homes. The coronavirus will increase online purchases and payments, including the sale of fresh produce.

2: “virtual stores” vs “traditional physical stores”

In the future, and this is another trend at work, traditional physical stores will lose their meaning. They will no longer focus on “selling products” but rather on “the most fantastic experience offers possible”.

3: “online customers” vs “conventional customers”

Traditional customer acquisition methods are becoming obsolete and increasingly expensive. In the midst of an epidemic, many companies are now realizing the importance of being able to “acquire customers online”.

4: “online education” vs “traditional education”

Many people get used to studying at home with the coronavirus. This phenomenon forces traditional learning institutions to accelerate the educational transition. Just as the internet has changed the way products are distributed, it has also changed the way knowledge is distributed. The benefits of online education are already seen by the Chinese government as a major pillar to accelerate the education of their citizens.

5: “traditional office” vs “online office”


If the epidemic persists, it will increase homework and promote the growth of individual and collaborative work online.

If the epidemic persists, it will increase the use of homework and promote the growth of individual and collaborative work online. China also anticipates a collapse of the office rental market in this regard from this year as well as an increase in the popularity of online collaboration software as well as online sales of traditional individual office .

6: “free” vs “paying”

In this epidemic context, Chinese citizens are abandoning theater and cinema and moving to free online viewing. With the Chinese model in full reflection on this subject, it is very likely that future models will increasingly rely on digital background services.

7: “smart cities” vs “traditional cities”

In the face of the epidemic, the city of Wuhan was closed during the Chinese New Year. It is obviously a very rare event in the history of China.

To contain the spread of the virus, ideally, the health situation of each citizen in Wuhan should have been known. In this way, everyone could have been monitored and located in order to allow more orderly prevention actions. By building on the advantages of “smart cities”, China would obviously have the possibility of having more means of scientific governance, of optimizing the management of medical resources, traffic management, the chain of logistics supply, emergency claims management, information transmission, as well as the management of nursing robots likely to go to contaminated areas. These “smart cities” would be managed with the help of big data and could even prevent disasters thanks to artificial intelligence. Following this epidemic, China will certainly accelerate the development of these “smart cities”.

2020 is the year of the rat, and the rat ranks first in the 12 signs of the zodiac. The Chinese interpret it as a new historic event in the evolution of the country and hope to transform the unfortunate coincidence of the coronavirus epidemic into an opportunity for its future development.

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