The New Normal
We’re on the verge of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Recessions, health crisis, economic and political changes have all served as catalysts for growth and development. We all remember the most recent SARS pandemic from 2004, which gave birth to the retailing giant Ali Baba. The financial crisis of 2008 also saw a wave of innovations. Airbnb and Uber shot up in popularity as an answer to people’s shrinking income. Video game business models rapidly changed as well, with 2011 seeing the rise of the free-to-play business model, thanks to Nexon in Asia and King in the west.
With the new Covid-19 pandemic, we are already seeing early signs of a shift in how consumers and businesses behave. Remote working is the new norm for tech and non-tech companies alike, supply chains are getting disrupted globally and retail stores are running out of essential items, dry goods and hygiene products en masse. Some of these changes are direct, short-term responses to the crises and will revert to regular levels once the health crisis is contained. However, some of these shifts will continue on, creating a long-term digital disruption that will shape businesses for decades to come.
There will certainly open possibilities for longer-term innovation and changes in trends as consumers and businesses try to normalize the impact on day-to-day operations and activities. Given that containment is reached and the biological impact is resolved.
Many startups that launch in the times of global crises usually bring about acceleration in business model change, driving down costs to serve and prices. Health crisis, as scary as they are, tend to enable entirely new categories of businesses. In a way, both pandemics and recessions are accelerants to innovation rather than being direct causes of it.
Global supply chains have long been moving towards smarter technology, greater freedom of networking and movement and less disruption. Covid-19 is a terrible shock to the global economy as well as the thousands of small and medium businesses it has affected. Companies in the immediate term need to ensure that the health and safety of its workers, partners and suppliers come first. But in the longer term, Covid-19 has created numerous opportunities for rethinking the status quo and changing the B2B and B2C landscape for good. Firms that choose to capitalize on these underlying changes will succeed and the ones that don’t will get disrupted.
Mind Katalyst works with clients to help define, build and grow meaningful and transformative software and hardware across emerging technology platforms including Augmented Reality, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning and IoT. For more on how Mind Katalyst can help you scale your technology products, contact us for more details.
Carnellia Ajasin CEO of Mind Katalyst, is passionate about inventing new technology products in the emerging technology space that are meaningful and relevant. She works with ambitious organizations and businesses on the strategic application of innovation, creativity and emerging technologies to create competitive advantage, transformative impact and growth in business and society.
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