The pandemic has become a huge social experiment just at a time when Humanity has more sensors than ever to gather information. Thus, thanks to Chinese online sales platforms, we know that the demand for eye makeup has increased by 13% year-on-year, while lipstick has fallen by 39% due to the use of masks (data from Kantar). And there are many more changes that go beyond the logical effects of teleworking and online education. These are some of the changes caused by the coronavirus:
1. Headquarters and offices. The first thing that teleworking has called into question is the very existence of the workplace. Do you need huge venues with hundreds of parking spaces? Or they can be replaced by "hot" (rotating) jobs, meeting rooms and representative sites. Everything indicates that it is not and that teleworking will become the default mode in which services will be provided. 80% of respondents, according to a Stanford University study, said they enjoyed working from home.
2. Control of employees. But telecommuting will bring greater employee control and this can lead to abuses such as espionage and meddling in personal lives. Companies that cannot work for objectives need reliable and non-intrusive systems to verify that their workers are providing the service, but this conflicts with the privacy of the workers.
The Wall Street Journal reported in April on the boom being experienced by companies that install surveillance programs for teleworking. It told the story of Chris Heuwetter, the head of a Florida social media marketing company, who asked his workers to install a tool that takes computer screenshots every 10 minutes and records how much time they spend on certain activities. The software guarantees that the control only occurs during work time and the worker can disconnect it at will.
3. Social distance or contactless economy. All activities facing the public (hotels, restaurants, banking, commerce...) must take this effect into account. Impersonal, aseptic, regulated care and with clear and transparent procedures will be valued instead of person to person. Impersonal does not mean depersonalized.
However, physical money has suffered a significant setback in these months of confinement and cards and contactless electronic means have revealed themselves as comfortable and credible systems for people. A phenomenon similar to what happened in China with the SARS epidemic of 2003, which stimulated digital payments and online commerce, is taking place. That year, for example, Alibaba launched Taobao, its first online sales platform, and shortly after created Alipay.
4. Virtual business. Many companies have realized that they can serve customers by Zoom, Teams, Meet or Webex. The realization of events in the network (conferences, contests, courses...) capable of bringing together potential clients with specific profiles will experience a significant boom. The digitization of the economy has accelerated. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said: "We've seen two years of digital transformation in two months."
5. Technological dependency. Our reliance on technology will take a leap, but it will be more refined. There will be applications to avoid rush hours on public transport and to combine these with staggered working hours. Applications that will tell us if we have been in contact with a source of contagion. The demand to improve communications infrastructure in countries that lack it will grow. The deployment of 5G will be a necessity that will go beyond the political and strategic fears that have weighed it down until now.
6. The 'delivery'. Home delivery (delivery) will be extended to unsuspected limits, but critical aspects such as the working conditions of the distributors and their remuneration will have to be resolved. We will also see important advances in delivery by drones and self-guided vehicles. In the US, 61% of retail users are already online and 45% in the case of clothing (McKinsey data).
This also poses challenges for physical stores. Many will not reopen, others, the best located, will do so only as showrooms and some will survive as picking points, collection points or return points for online purchases. The return phenomenon, which was already important because it guaranteed a second visit to the store, will increase.
7. Online education. It has been one of the great fields of transformation. In mid-April a remarkable event occurred: 191 countries had all their primary and secondary schools closed. 1,600 million children on the planet who were in different phases of their school year were affected. The experience accumulated in these months should not be underestimated. The university benefits from the fact that study habits are already established from previous educational levels. The challenge, however, is in instilling those habits or more effective new ones at the lower levels.
8. Telemedicine. The pandemic has popularized medical apps. Thousands of cares will be replaced by telemedicine systems supervised by human doctors or nurses. Simple diagnoses such as the flu will no longer need to go to the clinic. Very simple kits, for home operation, will allow care for chronic patients. And it will be possible to contact pharmacies and local delivery services that will supply the medicines to your home. In Germany, app downloads from telemedicine providers quadrupled in the pandemic (McKinsey).
9. cybersecurity. As more of our lives take place online, the vulnerabilities of our communications and of the human condition will be a factor that criminals will increasingly exploit. Cybersecurity will become as important a chapter as home alarms.
10. The big brands are back. The pandemic has strengthened the big brands that have adopted ad hoc advertising and communication strategies. McKinsey considers that the large companies have increased their market share by 1% and expects a further increase in the coming months. However, during the confinement, a willingness of people to subordinate the choice based on the brand to the availability of the product has also been detected, which has meant a new opportunity for white brands.
