Me, my (new reality) life, my wallet: Personal resilience will create ambidextrous consumers

Human beings are inherently resilient. The perpetual uncertainty and the degree to which our lives have been disrupted is ushering in a host of changes to our behaviors and our wallets, as Kes Sampanthar discussed in the previous article in our series. Life finds a way. As humans, when faced with adversity, we are creative, innovative, and adaptive. We deal with uncertainty in unpredictable ways. We are “Macgyver-ing” new solutions to our needs. We make things work. And work it out. In doing so, we are unleashing an enormous wave of change and innovation, which will have long tail impacts for businesses.

The longer this period of uncertainty goes on, the more we realize that to successfully navigate the pandemic in the medium (and potentially longer) term, we must identify alternative solutions for food, fitness, work, education, shopping, entertainment, worship, etc. Our homes have rapidly become the hub for almost all aspects of our lives. Our personal resilience explains spending in areas that may at first have seen puzzling.

• We’re “stress baking” – Bread makers surge more than 6x Bloomberg and King Arthur flour sales went up by 2,000% AdWeek
• We’re adopting quarantine buddies – The ASPCA saw a 70% increase in animals going to foster homes CNN and e-commerce pet store Chewy’s sales shot up 46% year-over-year in Q1 Earnings (10-Q)
•  We’ve noticed our homes could use an upgrade -- Houzz, an online home remodeling platform, reported a 58% annual increase in project leads for home professionals in June 2020 CNBC
• We’re biking for exercise and transportation -- Bicycle sales increased by 63% in June 2020 versus the same time last year.
• We’re working out, but staying in – Exercise class platform Mindbody saw a 230% increase in virtual class attendees the Monday after New York City’s lockdown was announced Mindbody; Peloton’s global membership doubled in June leading to a 172% increase in revenue year-over-year BBC
• We’re using apps to stay calm – Mindfulness apps surged 25% in the end of March Washington Post
• We’re picking up new skills from home – Virtual learning service MasterClass reports that sales have doubled year-over-year Forbes
• We’re even shopping for homes online – 35% of realtors say their sellers are rely virtual tours CNBC

Surviving this new reality doesn’t just lead to spending in new categories, we are also adapting to doing familiar activities in new ways. As highlighted in Life, Interrupted, we are spending more time and money in the virtual world. We are being presented with an increasing array of virtual alternatives. Virtual events, virtual entertainment, virtual education, virtual work, virtual fitness, even virtual religion. Innovations of the past have given opaque signals of what virtual was going to be, with much focus on virtual reality. Yet fast forward through COVID time, and virtual isn’t the VR universe in Ready Player One. It’s actually a much more nuanced and complex evolution. 

 As we grow more resilient at traversing the physical, digital, and virtual realms, we have quickly become ambidextrous consumers -- managing our new reality in ways we wouldn’t have thought possible, making changes in weeks or months that would have previously taken years or decades. 

 Virtual is where we meet “in person” in the digital world. There is a formula to bridge the physical to virtual dimension - on either side of the virtual bridge where we meet are the right combination of home environment + physical equipment + apps + devices + internet + subscription.

As we go through COVID waves we are evolving from basic “make it work” hacks to more sophisticated solutions. We will ambidextrously adapt our modes based on what we can do – in person, if it’s an option, but if not, we will seamlessly transition to the virtual experience, and preferably under one connected pricing model. 

Virtual is also a new business model, where video has now been layered on top of the previous technologies (electricity, telephone, cable, internet, mobile), and new ways of interacting and making money are being built on top of it. Similar in ways to when the iPhone was released in 2008, but at hyper scale speed of adoption due to the Great Lockdown. Organizations are rapidly innovating virtual experiences - and this in turn is accelerating our adoption of new technologies, creating a new hybrid landscape of physical/ virtual/ and digital, one which will continue to evolve. We expect future spend to increase for businesses playing a role in some part of this bridge to virtual formula.

And it’s not just B2C. When we get up in the morning, we don’t divide our lives into sectors. When we cross the threshold into work, we don’t leave our expectations at the door. If anything, B2B virtual “people to people” interactions are becoming increasingly critical, given how many people are working remotely. There is significant acceleration in expectations, adoption, innovation - all happening together at hyper speed – literally years in weeks or months. And these same people (whether customers or employees) are playing multiple roles, and thus experiencing accelerated change in other areas of their lives (e.g. virtual events, virtual fitness, online education), which changes their expectations when they interact with you.

In order to adapt to ambidextrous consumers (and employees), we believe that successful organizations of the future will need to address key questions including:

• How can I anticipate and stay on top of the changing behaviors, expectations, and wallet shifts? 
• How can I develop ambidextrous business and operating models to respond to changing customer and employee needs?
• What can I do to explore emerging business and pricing models? e.g. virtual for everything and subscription pricing models for rapidly evolving areas including virtual events and meetings, online education, and telehealth.
•  What are the potential impacts of changing people trends on my workforce?
• How can I build in resiliency as a new core competency for my business, in order to be able to continually respond to a rapidly changing and uncertain environment?

 If 2020 has proven anything, it’s that we don’t always know what the world is going to throw at us next, which is why ambidextrous operating models will become increasingly important for businesses. Next week in our series, we will look at how big change leads to bigger change, and what that means for your business.