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COVID-19 has kept the business world locked in limbo for almost the past year and a half. But now, it seems that the clouds are beginning to part. There’s hope on the horizon, which means things may soon be returning to some semblance of pre-pandemic normalcy. But that begs the question: what will we do when that happens?
A Fundamental Shift
The pandemic has affected business and the economy in unprecedented ways, devastating some industries while radically boosting others.
Somewhere, the early investors of Zoom Video Communications are sitting on a small fortune, while airline moguls are sadly counting their remaining shekels. But as we approach the halfway mark of 2021, will these pandemic priorities help sustain certain sectors’ growth and leave other former titans in the dust? Will things ever go back to the way they once were, or will the end of the pandemic also mark the end of an era for businesses that once dominated the market?
But beyond the shift in consumer demand, there has also been a complete turnaround in industry supply. According to data analyst McKinsey, “the pandemic has left businesses and governments to grapple with a perplexing collection of supply-chain and logistical disruptions.” So, while global suppliers predicted the initial buyer trends that arose from the virus and lockdowns, they couldn’t have foreseen the subsequent secondary shortages.
The HBR Survival Guide
The global chain of supply and demand has been turned upside down. So how can businesses expect to make money and adapt to the market when they don’t even know what the next six months will hold?
According to the Harvard Business Review, there are three questions every business proprietor should answer:
- How does your business really make money?
- Who do you rely on to drive your business?
- What will consumer behavior look like post-pandemic?
Two of these questions are relatively straightforward: they have to do with your business strategies and understand how your financial model operates. But the third is somewhat more challenging to answer.
Just because you know your client demographic doesn’t necessarily lend insight into their mindset or buying habits. You’ll notice that the first two questions are focused on something that you can control: your company’s internal strategy and operation. But the last is entirely out of your hands. There is no definitive way to know which way the pendulum will swing: which industries will sink, and which will swim.
But HBR goes on to say that there are three models of behavior that can help predict future trends: understanding sustained, transformed, and collapsed behaviors may be the thing that helps you weather the storm.
- Sustained behaviors will ultimately go back to a relatively normal, pre-pandemic state after a certain amount of time
- Transformed behaviors are activities that will come back eventually, but they will be fundamentally changed
- Collapsed behaviors will never go back to the way they once were. Instead, they may fade away entirely or be replaced by an alternative.
The key to success is deciphering which ones are which! Still, it’s good to know that a change is coming soon. We just must learn how to adapt to it.
