Welcome to Tomorrow

It seems that at this point, by far half of the world sits in one boat. Naturally, with a sudden change in life’s daily routines and challenges, many were struck, if not just shock, and there were some difficulties. However, it is now clear that this whole experience has helped us to achieve “tomorrow” more quickly, which we have talked about so much.

Life has moved into the digital space, and business has become more active here. As research has shown since the last financial crisis, it was best to deal with it for those who acted quickly, transformed their business and adapted it to the changed needs of consumers. Innovation, speed and synergy have had a huge impact on the growth of companies.

Think about what if we were in this situation a decade or 20 years ago, when there were still practically no mobile phones in Lithuania? Now millions of people are isolated, but continue to work, learn, keep in touch with loved ones. We need to understand that the changed conditions lead to completely new opportunities, so the natural question is how will we live from now on?

More efficient remote working and new positions

The whole global world has slowly moved towards the idea of workers who do not need offices. But probably no one expected this to become a reality in one day. And if the quarantine was still in doubt at first, then how we will work now, we saw in a recent survey of employees that almost 40% of the Baltic Amadeus team would like to continue working remotely. In addition, 55% of employees reported working more efficiently at home than in an office. Here, for example, Barclays Bank announced that they were already considering new positions that would allow people to work remotely only. This not only saves costs (e.g. for office rent), but also ensures stability in the future in the event of a new COVID-19 wave or other risk. For its part, Huawei has introduced a solution that prevents the activation of the office entrance card until it receives information about the employee’s body temperature. Of course, many of us lack live communication, but attitudes towards teleworking are changing fundamentally. A variety of tools and solutions are rushing to the rescue that allow you to help you remain part of the team even at this time. Let’s say the zoom video conferencing app managed to increase the number of daily users from 10 to 200 million in three months. And this fact helps us to understand not only about the need for such tools, but also about business opportunities. Technology has become available to everyone so the current situation and the available technological tools or systems in just one quarter of the year allow the business to grow as much as 20 times. And if it was previously thought that digitisation should supposedly only be carried out by the big players in the market, then now the price of these technological opportunities has become so low that it is certainly available to small or medium-sized enterprises.

Technology has become available to everyone

On the other hand, competition is increasing. And in Lithuania, we had cases where, in just a week or two, companies opened or started to provide services in areas where only one business had been operating before. We also watched the synergy. Let’s say when taxi customers fell, drivers started taking goods home. However, there is no doubt that the need for measures to ensure the quality of life at home will only grow. Consumer habits have already changed. And we used to buy online? But now everything seems to be delivered to the house. According to one study, 55% of Chinese plan to continue to use e-shop services and buy food online.

Security priority

The rapid spread of various apps, decisions that also concern health or local data has led to an increase in security and reliability gaps. They are determined and quick decisions are made. A recent study by the technology corporation Microsoft found that there was virtually no country that would not have experienced at least one cyber attack involving COVID-19. Moreover, the map explains that the countries with the highest number of infected were the most active in the consoles. Scammers are targeting precisely the part of society that is most emotionally affected. Most likely, we have heard of situations where attempts are being made to lure information, interfere with remote conferences or otherwise seize data, spread fake news.

What will everyday life look like after a pandemic?

When we talk about the transformation of companies at the moment, we also need to talk about digitisation processes. Not only the internal motivation of companies, but also the attitude of managers, the farsightedness, ensuring continuous growth are essential. The company must be able not only to adapt the technologies that best meet their needs today, but to keep them up to date. The situation in this area is changing very quickly. Remote control? Robots that will give away goods without any contact or disinfect the streets? Drones that fly over the city and show where people are going to go do not comply with quarantine conditions? Not only automation, but also robotization today is becoming relevant. With the addition of analytical work, artificial intelligence will see that the possibilities are, in fact, endless. Everyone’s focused today. There was a certain ecosystem, a sense of communality. Businesses began to communicate with each other, government, society, seek synergies and common solutions. We learned to cope quickly with the challenges. There is no longer such a great fear of mistakes. Let us take over this experience in other areas as well. You’ll be surprised how many people and businesses inside can perfectly generate new ideas, implement and sustain innovation. Do not be afraid to experiment. New ideas will work or not, it is no longer so important. Speed is now important and that solutions to problems in the market emerge as quickly as possible. Don’t stop acting and try – it will be a guarantee of your success in the new present.