Michaud interviewed on economic impact of COVID-19 for E-Commerce Times

Dr. Gilbert Michaud, assistant professor of practice at Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs, was recently interviewed by E-Commerce Times to provide insight on the negative economic impact of the coronavirus.  

In the article, “The Tech Industry's Tectonic Shift” author Peter Suciu quoted Michaud to explain how event cancellations related to COVID-19 have affected businesses and organizations around the world.

"There really is a delicate balance between achieving public health and negative economic consequences," Michaud told the E-Commerce Times. "Immediately and directly, markets will suffer due to uncertainty, panic, and an overall lack of spending. It's important to understand the multiplier effect at play here." 

While cancellations are costly, their impact goes beyond the lost revenue for direct organizers and local businesses, Michaud said.  

“There are obviously the direct, short-term implications of a cancellation, such as with registration fees, airline and hotel sales, dining, and others -- but there are also longer-term threats,” Michaud said in the article. “Then we also have ancillary implications for vendors and strategic partners who are also losing business -- and finally, all of those direct and indirect workers usually spend money in their local economy, such as at restaurants or movie theaters, but with less local spending comes deeper economic fallouts.” 

The unfavorable implications as part of the indirect effect subsequently leads to negative induced effects due to a lack of household spending, Michaud added.

"Many companies, at least in the short term, will be using virtual alternatives to run their operations entirely online to avoid face-to-face interaction," Michaud said. 

Working remotely will be a challenge for smaller companies, who may lack the resources to move their company to a virtual platform. 

"There are potential IT headaches, and managing employees remotely can be a challenge," Michaud said. "This transition may be easier for the tech industry, but for sectors such as government, health care and legal, which require interaction and typically work off of legacy systems, this is a huge concern." 

To read the full article, visit ecommercetimes.com