The Big Break: Post-Pandemic ‘New Normal’

David Smith

Futurist and CEO

Global Futures & Foresight

This is the second edition of ‘The big break’, the first being published on the 8th April. This edition now covers the likely ‘new normal’ of 40 sectors and contains views on the impact on community, work and religion and a more in-depth economic outlook.
Download the full report here: The Big Break – Post Pandemic ‘New Normal’ – 40 Sectors -2nd edition May 2020

Whilst ‘new normal’ is now a slightly overused phrase it represents well the business environment and changed circumstances that are likely to emerge after the lock-down and virtual closure of most sectors during the pandemic are lifted. Following a season of environmental turbulence, we now face the challenge of surviving the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic and of equal importance to business, its aftermath.
In addition, in the UK, and for the rest of the EU, the impending change brought about by BREXIT and our desire to counter the impact of man-made climate change will add to the general discontinuity. Add to this, the inexorable rise of technology which presents us with the challenge to change, not just the technology
we use but also our processes, culture and even our propositions.
Automation and new practices will impact almost every area of our lives in the future. It will present itself in many guises, including through artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT), 5G, edge and quantum computing and every sort of virtual and extended reality and also generate data on a scale and speed that we have never experienced and rarely imagined possible.
What the lockdown has shown us is that the imperative of co-location, which stemmed from the industrial era, is no longer a pre-requisite in the knowledge economy and we can now imagine new ways of working, seeking health advice, learning and entertaining ourselves, to name but a few ways.
This report illustrates how forty sectors are likely to have changed after the strictures of the pandemic are fully lifted.

This report is written for two audiences:
1. For organisations to be informed and motivated to think that their position before the pandemic might never be regained in the same way. Some will see great opportunities to build on changes that emerged during the lockdown of the world. Others may believe that most things will return to normal. Only time will tell us who is right. However, one thing is certain, slipping into irrelevance is not just possible but has been experienced by many past sector leaders who refused to think that the world and its needs, could ever change.

2. For Agencies and advisers to help their clients to not just grasp that times may be changing but that they need to lead the sectors they serve into that change, its consequences and potential responses. This is a time for confident firms/brands to prepare their markets to not just meet these new challenges but renew themselves in the process. A time to share their thought leadership with their target markets.

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