The pandemic has changed everything: people, organizations, markets, strategies..
Consumers quickly became masters of devices and technologies and companies, for their part, achieved in a few months what they had not done in many years: COVID-19 accelerated digital transformation and allowed many organizations to implement initiatives who previously encountered opposition or resistance. An important cultural change, partly defensive, which has finally highlighted the benefits attributed to transformation initiatives, primarily cost reduction.
And the markets, how have they changed?
Oggi sono caratterizzati in buona parte da e-commerce, realtà virtuale e realtà aumentata – non più “qualcosa di tendenza” ma veri strumenti di posizionamento dei brand capaci di garantire un’esperienza interattiva ai potenziali clienti; sono canali ormai ampiamente diffusi e alla portata di tutti sui quali è praticamente impensabile non investire.
Finally, the new demand/supply dynamics have imposed omnichannel strategies on organizations to guarantee advanced and homogeneous purchasing experiences. In this regard, those who thought they could do without it made a serious blunder, while those who - not without difficulty - were able to transform the initial situations of discomfort into opportunities for change, not only survived on the market, but are today bigger and more competitive than before.
But what will happen from here on out? Nothing will be the same as before!
It is necessary to immediately think about the management of phase 2; the path towards agility begins now because the only constant is - and will be even more so in the future - change! Of course, the pandemic will subside and we will return to circulating freely, but many of the structures and habits acquired will remain and continue to evolve.
In other words, the new phase will not be a simple return to pre-COVID business, so don't wait for the "return to normality", this will not happen; what awaits us is the decade of an elusive and slippery "never normal": Each stage reached will be quickly overcome to aim for the next, each junction of apparent new normality will be disintegrated by new experiences. It is for this reason that the transition to a more flexible infrastructure is one of the most urgent priorities of all brands (a recent report from the IBM Institute for Business Value also highlighted this). It will be an era defined by rapid and continuous changes in cultural norms, societal values and behaviors, so we will do well to get used to it.
Our advice?
Plan now where you want to be in five years post Covid, don't risk looking back and having to think about where you would have liked to be before all this happened!
The first step towards planning is a check on the state of the art.
Do you want to check the digital maturity of your company?
Take advantage of a 30-minute free consultation with TDE experts.