We shouldn’t go back to ‘business as usual’ – business takeaways from COVID19

Business takeaways from COVID19, by Heimo Hammer CEO of kraftwerk group

COVID-19 has completely shaken up most business around the world. Leaders and businesses are having to adapt and rethink their structure to survive in a post-coronavirus future. The speakers at the Virtual Fast Forward Forum discussed how these trends will impact the economy, and what business leaders can do to stay ahead.

Here are their main lessons:

1. Digital transformation is over

Dhiraj Mukherjee, the co-founder of Shazam Entertainment, said that whether we like it or not, we have now been fast-forwarded into the fully virtual. It’s the companies and individuals who are able to ‘learn how to learn’ that will get ahead and be the real winners.

Businesses need to do more than just sell a product or a service

COVID has made companies much more human, notices Brand Management and Innovation specialist Alicia García López. Businesses are beginning to treat consumers like people who have values. Of course, customers still want value, quality and good service, but now they expect much more.

No ‘business as usual’ – business takeaways from COVID19

Since lockdown, everyone is buying and communicating online. Leaders and businesses will need to do much more than just go digital. They will need to leverage acceleration, recognise changes and act quickly – including when it comes to thinking about more possible health challenges to come. The businesses who are the most flexible will do the best, so embracing innovation should be a priority.

Climate change hasn’t been reversed with a two-month lockdown

“Polluted oceans and climate change could be more impactful for our future than COVID-19,” says Innovator and Trendwatcher Igor Beuker. An ever-growing economy will destroy the world and planet as we know it.

Igor’s lesson for everyone in leadership – “No matter if you’re a business leader or a country leader, we need to think about the economy for our future. Can we keep this massive growth? And if we do, how do we deal with climate change, clean energy and polluted oceans?”

Pick up the pace

Another point highlighted by Igor is that most of us are working at a pace that is 10 times too slow. We need leadership with radical foresight on the future when it comes to climate change – leaders so far have been neglecting the warnings for too long.

Global business leaders should not ignore facts for another 50 years. They need to work quickly to create an exit strategy that will fix our economy and start working towards our ‘new normal’, which we have been neglecting to do for far too long.

Collaboration is the way forward

Matteo Atti, the Executive Vice President of Marketing and Innovation for Vistajet, says he is currently seeing two kinds of people – those who are trying their best to retain what can be saved, and those who are looking to leave what they have and rebuild. “I do believe that collaboration will win over egoism in the end,” Matteo says. “Let’s embrace collaboration.”

This is a view shared by Sunnie Groeneveld, Managing Partner of Inspire 925 and Associate Dean of Studies for the Executive MBA Digital Leadership at the HWZ University in Zurich. “This is a global pandemic which requires a global response. And of course, we need to recognise that it will not be solved by one country alone. Instead it will have to be solved by all of us together. Different actors from the private as well as the public sectors will have to team up to drive innovation forward.”

Article based on the economy panel at the Virtual Fast Forward Forum 2020. Heimo Hammer is CEO of the kraftwerk group – Austria’s leading digital agency. He has been a start-up investor and digital entrepreneur for 28 years and is the co-founder and host of the Fast Forward Forum.

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