Covid-19: business must get ready for the new abnormal

Future scenarios research uncovers six major trends that accelerated during the pandemic, writes Leslie Willcocks

 
Anyone who has tried researching the future will know that it can be a fairly dumb-assed thing to do. You can always extrapolate forwards from the past. And something similar must have happened back then that we can draw lessons from, don’t you think? OK, let’s factor in some new events and emerging patterns. Let’s take a lot of evidence on intentions, actual practices from organisations and governments, and track these carefully for changes and patterns. Then let’s hedge our bets by creating multiple scenarios ranging from optimistic to the most pessimistic, but just focus on the most likely futures. Oh, and don’t forget the human dimension, that is – try to anticipate how people will respond, what their psychological states will be, what will be driving them. Throw in technological developments and the likely massive impact of digital technologies, some of which are only just emerging. Shake, stir and pour.

Well obviously it was more rigorous and carefully accomplished than that (I think) but I have been doing a lot of research into future scenarios for a forthcoming book on global business and technology. Here is my more brazen version of only some of the findings so far, as at end of May 2020.

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Πηγή: blogs.lse.ac.uk