What is the new normal?

In just few months, our lives have changed dramatically. The Hollywood disaster movie has come straight into our households and offices. It is on our doorstep, on our TV’s, across social media, in our faces 24/7. This pandemic has hit the world with devastating effect, excluding the sad and stark amount of deaths it has caused globally, stock markets have crashed, international borders have been closed, travel has been suppressed, offices have shut. Self-isolation is the new normal and working from the confines of your home is now entrenched in our mindset and habits.

But what does this pandemic mean for us in the coming months and years... What does it mean for us as a society? What does this mean for the economy? Lives are being lost, medical and health systems pushed to breaking. Businesses are closed, smaller enterprises have forced to shut their doors. Fiscal injection from governments through grants, loans, and other employee funding initiatives including furlough has changed employers' and employees' outlook for 2020. The implications of how we live, socialise, relax, work, and compete in the global economy in the future may well be changed forever. Small businesses looking to survive are trying to initiate novel ideas to maintain revenues and retain employees. Corporations whose share price has fallen to the lowest depths in decades are forecasting dramatic downturns in revenues and profits. The unprecedented expenditure by governments to manage the pandemic and support individuals and businesses through this disaster will have to be recouped somehow.

So how do we come out on the other side? It is impossible to have a clear understanding if or when that will be and how many reoccurrences or the length or severity of the current restrictions will be in place. This will be an astronomic effort by all of us, individually, as a nation and as a global entity. This will take unprecedented collaboration during unprecedented times. Although we are now in the 6 months of this pandemic, this saga has only just begun and what we do in the coming weeks and months will define the future global society and economy we will live and work in.

Business plans meticulously put together late last year now need to be realigned to the environment that was probably not even thought about. The risk from a Pandemic will now be a strong and visible factor moving forward, high on the SWOT analysis Threats section.

Innovation, usually aligned to technology advances will have to spread to business functions, how we sell, communicate, build relationships and manage our businesses in the future. Innovative thinking will need to take a part in all aspects of the business from where and how we work on a day to day basis in the future, do all businesses need to have the overheads of office space, when they are trying to recoup or recover from the past few months of revenue losses? Will full-time employees evolve to external consultants and self-employed adhoc resources expanding the previously expanding Gig economy. Will deglobalisation occur across global businesses, or will businesses revert to selling and supporting nationally instead of internationally.

As well as possibly diminishing business, the pandemic may also open or accelerate new innovations that have been widely talked about but not fully implemented. Do automation and RPA take a significant role in certain job functions? Will AI come to the fore, will drone services expand, will autonomous vehicles become the norm? What is very clear, we all need to adapt our businesses, this may need a step backwards or step sideways, it may mean a completely different business model. What I am confident on, is those entrepreneurial and innovative thinkers will already have or be in the throes of reassessing their business for the next months of 2020 and whatever 2021 may bring and looking to successfully guide it down the meandering road…

Lateral Alliances offer professional and dependable consulting for all aspects of your company. From initiating and supporting marketing strategies, including PR, web design, graphic design, social media, business development, sale, right through to business and exit strategies, we have the skills and experience to support your business. We are a 'hands on' organisation, who prefer to get deeply involved in your business and challenges, not hide behind aimless discussions.

Insightful business thinking...