Following the financial crisis 10 years ago, governments around the world introduced more than 15,000 pieces of new legislation in response. Think about how new regulation may impact your organization and factor that into your strategy.
With the dramatic fiscal intervention by the state in supporting impacted workers and businesses, it seems inevitable that we will see short-term nationalization in some industries as well as direct state intervention in newly designated industries of strategic importance. We should also prepare for changes to the taxation system as governments look to recoup some of their recent outlay and rebalance the books in the medium term.
3. Use technology to augment, not replace, people
Technology is making history during this crisis by enabling us to rethink the ways in which we perform fundamental activities. Stock exchanges are still operating even though their physical trading floors are closed. The UK is on its way to establishing a virtual Parliament. Contact centers around the world are switching to remote ways of working, with some making use of artificial intelligence to maintain expected levels of customer service. While we have long had a strong culture at flexibility and remote working at EY, we flexed further and have over 300,000 people across 150 countries working from home.
All these developments are impressive, but many of the technologies and tools in which are all having a crash course in – such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom – all have the ability to enable us to do far more. Many businesses’ default positions are to use technology to replace, rather than to integrate with the workforce. This period is an opportunity for business leaders to explore how we can make greater use of technology to augment people so that we achieve productivity gains, improve the working lives of our employees, deliver better products and services to our customers and help drive higher economic growth.
4. Embrace the cultural and behavioral shifts COVID-19 introduced
For many, the global pandemic exposed weaknesses and rendered many traditional strengths irrelevant. Technology has been the common denominator to most organizations’ resilience amid the crisis. It has also helped drive significant cultural shifts – such as people working from home and connecting with colleagues via videoconferencing platforms and collaboration tools.
While online sales and services were already growing rapidly in many countries, the pandemic has catapulted online retail into overdrive. More than just food and home remedies, demand for services ranging from training courses and entertainment have all increased. Organizations have a valuable opportunity to capitalize on the significant behavioral and cultural shifts of the past few weeks so that they carry across into a non-COVID world.
This might mean developing omni-channel business models that combine digital and face-to-face offerings. The move to shift infrastructure from traditional data centers to cloud and hybrid cloud is already showing signs of acceleration. Many businesses are already re-thinking how to introduce greater virtualization into many aspects of the business, such as learning, while also modeling a far higher levels of remote working than before with the knock-on impact on the real estate and carbon footprint of the business.
Getting ready for what comes next
Although the majority of countries and businesses are still very much in the crisis management phase of COVID-19, some businesses are already exploring how they can set themselves up on the right trajectory for growth as they come out the other side. While prioritizing the well-being of staff and business continuity, they are reviewing whether their strategies remain fit for purpose. This entails considering which course corrections they need to make given technological advances, evolving customer and employee behaviors, the need for organizational agility and supply chain resilience, and the expanded role of the state.
The world is still in chaos right now. What’s more, this chaos has sparked a major social, economic and technological transformation that is playing out before our eyes. Clearly, we won’t revert back to our old ways of living, working or doing business once the worst of the crisis has passed. Tomorrow is certain to be very different – which is why we must start reframing the future today.
Summary
Organizations have naturally been focused on what they need to do to withstand the current crisis. But sooner or later, the outbreak will end. Organizations can prepare for the post-pandemic future now by devising a lockdown exit strategy; accounting for the changing role of the state; use technology to augment, not replace, people and embracing the cultural and behavioral shifts induced by COVID-19.
