The Covid-19 pandemic has inadvertently created the need to be innovative in all our activities. The prolonged lockdown has given us time to introspect and have a broader vision of life. Watching the poor unable to even manage one meal for themselves makes us realize the value of food.
The continuous hard work of medical professionals, essential service providers, and all the support staff who are in the first line of tackling the outbreak is highly commendable. In the fight to deal with the crisis, many NGOs are supporting the Government bodies and have contributed immensely in finding and filling the gaps in the last mile connectivity. As a social responsibility, many organizations have gone beyond their core industry to support communities.
Entrepreneurs in organic farming and agri-business, eldercare services, app-based services, online education, counseling & life coach for stress management, etc are the services in demand now. The formal office work culture is under the scanner. Work from home/ outsourcing/ offering contract-based positions will be some of the new HR strategies. Some of the industries like aviation, travel & tourism, hospitality, entertainment, etc. could take a long time to recover. All those who lost their jobs or are on the verge of losing them, need to upskill and upgrade themselves in this new world.
As we adjust our day-to-day routines to a new normal, making vital changes in the processes & communiqué is proportionately critical. Uncertainty gives us more freedom to embrace the 80/20 thinking and finding that 20% requires experimenting with new technologies, media platforms, or creative strategies. For example, several retail clients are now using search-data-analytics to promote products that people want right now, rather than waiting for sales data to build a decision.
While it is for businesses to define goals and values with mission statements, most people are now taking time to pinpoint their individual senses of wisdom. People are introspecting to identify the fundamental causes of behaviours, as well as what truly motivates them to make changes. It befits how you make decisions, how you lead, and how you create boundaries. Forcing oneself to focus on core values and how one defines success is an enlightening exercise. This is the perfect time to pause, reconsider positioning, and create a fresh vision of your brand (both personal & business) and it requires a certain degree of courage.
The uncertainty of the situation has influenced how we work- being agile, flexible, and cooperating effortlessly across teams. We must treat this as the starting point for reinvention. The situation is forcing us to think about our values and usual processes. Experiences we never had before to stimulate our creativity like- online concerts, live-streamed art classes, virtual museum tours, shooting videos on phones at home, etc to name a few.
Our favorite restaurants are closed and home deliveries are restricted. As revealed by Google, the record high recipe searches on the internet indicate families cooking restaurant delicacies at home. On the other hand, Zomato and Swiggy forayed into the delivery of grocery and liquor to embrace the change with time. The examples are endless where industries transformed to manufacture sanitizers, ventilators, and PPEs while their core production units remained at a standstill.
To reflect evolving relevance in these unprecedented times, it is essential to sharpen our learning curve. All famous Universities in the world are offering free online courses or courses at discounted rates. We should take advantage of these offers, pick our choice, and earn some of these laurels and certifications. Retail and supply chain, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, machine learning, health & wellness, cloud computing, and cybersecurity are some newer areas on the rising trend. Data analytics and IOTs are the lifelines of future industries. Digital marketing has emerged as a powerful gizmo to reach the masses. Blogs, YouTube, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms are rolling as new realities for creative minds to share knowledge and skills.
Let isolation ignite our imagination. Cuddle an investigational cognizance, one shouldn’t let a catastrophe go to waste. These are testing times, yes, but it’s also the time when the true creative spirit can emerge. As one tackle these short-term issues, one should strongly believe in continuing to build long-term competitive advantage. With this in mind, one should invest in IT capability and brand building. It is time to be a fearless, passionate, and an everlasting optimist to see a positive impact on the way we move forward!
VICTOR HE | SANGEETA
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