All the things that will change due to Covid-19
We are all under forced time-out from 4 weeks due to coronavirus. Many of us are trying to get used to this new lifestyle change.
At the same time, we are also beginning to think about what the world will look like after all this ends.
So, it’s a good time to round up some opinions about how the pandemic might change how we think about various aspects of life and work.
FastCompany asked some executives, venture capitalists, and analysts for thoughts on the specific changes they expected to see in their worlds.
Many of them have expressed extreme optimism about the aftermath of this pandemic crisis when it comes to their products, ideas, and causes.
The general themes in their comments add up to preview of what might be ahead for tech companies and consumers when this virus is no longer a breaking news story in the world.
Working From Home Becomes The New Normal
Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare
The result of this pandemic is to experiment with Work From Home effectiveness ever conducted in human history. They also saw the effect on the internet, especially the internet traffic patterns.
People are accessing more educational resources online for their kids, finding unusual ways to connect with coworkers, friends, and family.
Employers are being more flexible in how they respond to employee needs through more dynamic, cloud-based technology.
We will see these shifts last well beyond the immediate fallout of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft 365
This time will descend as a turning point for the way people work and learn.
People are carrying what they have learned and experienced from remote work back to their “new normal.”
We are learning so much about sustained remote work during this time.
Jeff Richards, Partner at the venture capital firm GGV Capital
He travels over 200,000 miles every year for work.
Now conducting those board meetings, interviews, and other mission-critical meetings via video chat has been normalized, Will he reduce his travel?
He is unsure right now, however, he thinks it is a behavioral shift that will stick.
In the past, a video meeting was considered as “mailing it in.” Now, it has become an accepted form of participation.
He also thinks Zoom has passed the rubicon from “Corporate” to “Consumer” as everyone in his family from 5 – 75 know how to use Zoom now.
That’s a game changer as per Jeff.
Tim Bajarin, Principal Analyst at Creative Strategies
They talked to CIO’s recently, and they told them that they are becoming more comfortable by allowing at least 25% of their staff to work from home.
That would mean fewer people on-site, which could result in the closure of open space work environments.
The experience with COVID-19, will for years, make people more aware of the spread of the virus, working in shoulder-to-shoulder open offices.
Eva Chen, CEO at Trend Micro
This Covid-19 experience will build our courage to adopt new patterns to fix outdated processes.
As a result, Organizations will ditch the idea of Big Offices and move to a small-town model of working in cluster offices with more remote work.
Furthermore, the company “headquarters” will be located in the cloud, shifting how they protect enterprise data in the virtual cloud and how they secure data from more diverse endpoints.
Sampriti Ganguli, CEO of the social venture firm Arabella Advisors
She says we are all becoming the “BBC Man,” where our kids and pets are rushing our meetings.
We have crossed the abyss between what is acceptable at home and work, and in many ways, these intimate moments allow us to have deeper and more meaningful connections as humans.
We are not going to go back to the world of working mostly from offices, anytime soon, and there are new business norms of work from home and work.
Steve Case, CoFounder of AOL, CEO and Chairman of Revolution
He believes that this pandemic will encourage people like Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Employees to consider opportunities outside of the coastal tech hubs.
People will make use of this time to move, tap into their sector of expertise like Healthcare, Food, and Agriculture, that exist in many parts of the country either to be closer to the family, and friends, or for a lifestyle change, helping emerging startup cities rise.
Vivek Ravisankar, CEO and CoFounder of programming-challenge platform HackerRank
Remote hiring of technical talent will become the norm, accelerated by the normalization of remote work.
This is a win-win for the economy and the talent pool, as it allows companies to fill positions quickly with qualified talent and opens up high-paying tech positions to developers everywhere.
They were already seeing the shift toward prioritizing skills over pedigree in hiring.
That will now evolve to skills over geography, making our tech talent pool more diverse, and our businesses and economy stronger.
AJ Shankar, CEO and CoFounder of Everlaw
In the modern work environment, real-time communication mediums like chat allow for a certain blurring of the line between personal life and work life, an “always-on” mentality.
But now, in a COVID world, that line has never been more blurred: There is no physical separation at all.
He predicts that expectations around availability will change for the better.
For employee-friendly companies, evening hours will ultimately revert to family or personal time, as they should.
This won’t happen automatically, a change in mindset and process is required.
THE DIGITAL MIGRATION ACCELERATES
Stan Chudnovsky, VP of Messenger, Facebook
He says it’s becoming evident every day that the way people are using technology to spend quality time with the loved ones, engage with businesses, and performing their jobs is shifting to a new normal.
The loved ones who haven’t seen each other in years are seeing each other now daily.
People are getting creative with virtual happy hours and keeping up with their formerly “physical” lives with shared workouts and virtual happy birthdays on products like Messenger.
He also believes that the growing acceptance of technology to help us feel connected will have long-lasting benefits.
Michael Hendrix, partner and global design director, Ideo
Right now, the virus seems like an accelerator for digital change that was already underway the surprise has been to see the resistance to this digital change suddenly dry up.
What organizations resisted for a decade is now core to survival and innovation.
It is exciting, because this digital mindset will persist, and it is highly unlikely companies will try to return to what worked before the pandemic.
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, CEO and President of cryptocurrency exchange Gemini
It has forced the government to intervene in the economy in a completely unprecedented way.
The Faustian bargain of money printing and debt accumulation will cause people to reevaluate fiat currency regimes altogether.
At some point, people will start to question the value of the dollars they hold and what will happen when the inevitable day of debt reckoning arrives.
Alex Farr, founder and CEO of voice tech company Zammo
He indicates that the usage of video conferencing is going to become a new norm of life due to this pandemic. The way it shows up through tech devices will also multiply.
At work and home, we will ask voice assistants to call our client, our boss, our mom, our friends, and on command, Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, etc., will take us the right to those live video conversations.
Will Cathcart, Head of WhatsApp
Due to physical distancing right now, they have seen people make far more video calls on WhatsApp more than before.
These are intimate and private conversations that people expect no one else should see, no different than if you were talking in person.
He believes that our shared experience of being physically isolated from one another will cause us to appreciate and value the privacy and security that comes with end-to-end encryption even more than we did before.
EDUCATION GOES VIRTUAL
Simon Allen, CEO of McGraw-Hill
The change they are seeing in education right now is not something going to revert to normal anytime soon.
Teachers will always be an integral part of the education process, there will be a need for continued flexibility and agility, with things like the delivery of content, testing, and grading.
He expects that we will see an increase in blended learning environments that include learning in both the physical classroom setting and online.
Adam Enbar, CEO of Flatiron School
Right now, educators are relying on Skype, Zoom, and Slack to teach and engage with students.
The schools are realizing that these tools are not replicating the classroom experience. These no-ed tech tools can never or should replicate the in-person classroom experience.
Nothing spurs innovation than people experiencing problems.
When things go back to normal, the usage of these tools will go down.
Instead, we will see a boom in technology that is built by entrepreneurs looking to create entirely new experiences custom to the remote education or work experience.
Sal Khan, founder and CEO of educational nonprofit Khan Academy
The need for online access and devices in every home is now so dire that it may finally mobilize society to treat internet connectivity as a must-have rather than a nice-to-have.
We are already seeing governments, school districts, philanthropists, and corporations step up to close the digital divide.
If this continues to happen, we could get to a state of nearly universal online access at home.
HEALTHCARE CONFRONTS SOME OLD PROBLEMS
Dr. Claire Novorol, CoFounder and Chief Medical Officer, Ada Health
The adoption of digital health tools from assessment services to telemedicine has rapidly accelerated, with healthcare organizations across the world looking to digital solutions to support their efforts against the pandemic, and health companies keen to rise to the occasion in support of healthcare payers, providers and patients alike.
It’s clear that we are witnessing a step-change in the adoption of digital health solutions, and that this has long-term potential.
The healthcare industry will be greatly affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and we can expect digital health technologies to form an essential part of the way forward.
Pat Combes, Worldwide Technical Leader, healthcare and life sciences at AWS
The biggest barrier to ensuring doctors have the most complete medical history on any patient, at every point of their care, is the lack of exchangeability among systems, preventing data and electronic health records from following a patient throughout their care journey.
Bringing this information together is a manual and time-consuming process.
But this is one of those pivotal moments in time when we have an opportunity to identify and work to fix the underlying problems that plague our system, with so many researchers, health systems, governments, and enterprises pooling efforts and data to better understand and combat COVID-19.
Ara Katz, CoFounder and Co-CEO, Seed Health
At a time when misinformation is especially rampant, and in many recent cases, dangerous, it is imperative that those working in science collectively steward and uphold a standard for how information is translated and shared to the public.
COVID-19 is a reminder of how science informs decisions, shapes policy, and can save lives.
The antidote to this current infodemic may be as important to our collective future as a vaccine.
Harry Ritter, founder and CEO of wellness professional community Alma
There will be a monumental shift in attitudes toward mental health.
Society, having experienced this collective trauma and grief, will develop new levels of empathy and a willingness to talk about mental healthcare as an essential part of healthcare in ways we have not seen before.
Employers are already seeing how emotional well-being is factoring into their workforce’s ability to perform under stress.
Ideally, they will come out of this better when they are able to recognize their obligation to prioritize mental healthcare as an employee benefit.
Peter Chapman, CEO and President, quantum-computing company IonQ
Within the next 12 to 18 months, we are expecting quantum computers to start to routinely solve problems that supercomputers and cloud computing cannot.
When humanity faces the next pandemic, he is hopeful that a quantum computer will be able to model the virus, its interactions within the human body that will drive possible solutions, and limit future economic damage and human suffering.
VENTURE CAPITAL HUNKERS DOWN
David Barrett, CEO and Founder of Expensify
This crisis has rapidly exposed the fragile weaknesses of many companies, especially those in tech that have been propped up by huge rounds of funding and strategies that require massive monthly burn rates.
They are now shaky on the edge of collapse, with most facing layoffs across the board and some searching for buyers as their last resort.
On the other hand, profitable companies are tightening their belts and carrying on their business as usual.
Going forward, the investor’s mindsets and qualifications about what constitutes a truly “valuable” company will change.
The investor’s emphasis will be more on qualitative aspects like the organization’s structure, team, culture, flexibility, and profitability than on quantitative aspects.
Sean Park, CIO & CoFounder at venture platform Anthemis
Covid-19 has put a halt on fast money and “FOMO” investing, forcing the VC industry to slow down, resist the inclination to follow the herd, and refocus on more robust due diligence and analysis.
Thesis-driven investors will take time 2 to 3 months to get to know the team, understand the business model, capital structure, and the market before closing a deal.
TRANSPORTATION REBOUNDS, AND EVOLVES
Michael Masserman, Global Head of policy and social impact, Lyft
As we look to the reopening of cities, people will be looking for affordable, reliable ways to stay socially distant while commuting, including turning to transportation options such as ride share, bike share, and scooters.
There will also be an opportunity for local governments, as well as key advocates and stakeholders, to consider reshaping our cities to be built around people and not cars.
Avi Meir, cofounder and CEO, TravelPerk
Countries and regions will emerge from lockdown at different paces, leading to “corridors of travel” between destinations opening back up one by one.
We are already beginning to see early signs of a modest pickup in travel again in Asia Pacific, as the local pressure of the virus lessens.
When travel does begin to resume, domestic travel will be first.
For most countries, that means taking a train, not least because they are less crowded.
MANUFACTURING GETS A WAKE-UP CALL
Ed Barriball, Partner in McKinsey’s Manufacturing and Supply Chain Practice
In the short term, companies are concerned about the shortages of critical goods across the supply chain, and some are looking for alternative sources closer to home.
In the long term, once we emerge from the current crisis, we expect businesses and governments to focus on better quantifying the risks faced and incorporating potential losses into business cases.
These businesses will model the size and impact of various shock scenarios to determine actions they should take to rebuild their supply chains and simultaneously build resilience for the future.
These actions could include bringing suppliers closer to home but could also include a range of other resilience investments.
Amar Hanspal, Former CEO at Autodesk and now CEO at Bright Machines
Customers he has been talking too, are combating with supply chain and factory disruptions across the globe. This has been a wake-up call to manufacturers.
The current way of building products in centralized factories with low-cost labor halfway around the world simply cannot weather the storms of uncertainty.
Moving forward, factories and supply chains will require, and businesses will mandate, much more resilient manufacturing through nearshoring and even onshoring, full automation, and software-based management.
NEW THINKING CHANGES OLD BUSINESSES
Sarah Stein Greenberg, Executive Director of the Stanford d.school
Adaptability is the most critical skill during this uncertainty, as conditions change. This is a kind of double-dealing focusing on surviving in the current moment, also thriving to build a future that will look different.
Successful leaders are creating and holding space in organizations for people to be generative, despite the challenging and stressful environment.
The fundamental strength of the design is, separating the process of generating ideas from critiques and selecting them.
We are seeing organizations and individuals are being rewarded with a wide range of potential solutions.
Will Lopez, Head of Accountant community at HR platform Gusto
COVID-19 isn’t the end of brick-and-mortar stores as they are vital to our communities and our economy, but the way they operate will change.
The crisis will force small businesses that have relied on Foot Traffic, as their main source of income to develop alternative revenue, so they can weather any next storm.
For example, many restaurants might permanently link up with delivery service platforms, or expand their geographic reach via ghost kitchens, and more boutiques will develop an online presence that reaches beyond their local neighborhoods.
Related Articles:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200331-covid-19-how-will-the-coronavirus-change-the-world
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