Ten years of transformation in two months

We began 2020 thinking it would be a good year for the economy and businesses. Then the virus struck, forcing us into isolation and radically changing the expected outcome. We are experiencing a surreal situation, seen only in movies before, with isolation that's affecting our lives greatly in matters of health, economics, politics, and behavior. I have had the chance of approaching the aforementioned matter through articles and videos. Nonetheless, here, I shall go into behavioral changes with significant impacts in the future, via a group of 10 representative words, to both make the reading easier and to enable the understanding of how each one may affect the business environment in the future.

1 – Digital: Companies and people have entered the digital era irreversibly. We have seen five-year goals achieved in 20 days. The online model of acquisition of services, content, and others will become preponderant, physical spaces will have to adapt to this, experimenting reduction in the speed of growth of shopping areas and others. Education will also be heavily affected and it will need to review what activities must be carried out in the classroom or virtually, and all of this free content produced shall serve the less fortunate, as long as homes have access to internet. If we conciliated young people who dominate the digital world with the elderly who know almost everything in terms of concepts and wisdom, we will have wonderful material because of this alliance. Digital services are also here to stay, especially in medical care. With media companies beaming interviews directly from people's homes, viewers are now used to watching content that looks more natural than studio produced pieces. And by the way, how nice is it to see the homes of those we have watched from studios all of our lives? It has also affected, irreversibly, culture and the delivery of entertainment, as the "lives" which attracted millions in all possible ways (engagement, audience, donations, sponsorship), representing a phenomenon in the history of art diffusion.

2 - Home: Home office, once considered as something that would not work efficiently, has evidently now shown that it not only works but also produces excellent results. We will see a sharp reduction in flights and car trips to meetings and others since everyone has now adapted to meetings through connecting platforms that work incredibly well. Companies will also notice that they do not need as many people in administrative, commercial, and sales activities; therefore, I believe downsizing is most probable as is the reduction of the demand for commercial properties, downsizing of offices and people (overheads) and reduction in the need of business transportation. Also, the tourism segment may return to growth, since now people are spending more time at home, not traveling, their wish to travel with family and not to stay home on the weekend may return. This fact may value living in the countryside, on the outskirts, in smaller centers and less in great urban areas.

3 - Simplicity: in this isolation period, parts of the population took time to reorganize closets, shelves, and other home compartments, materials are being donated since we have realized they are not necessary. I believe that a simpler life has come closer to us, with the question "Do I need this?" being asked more often from now on. This will impact consumption of many products. We will value details more, small things, places, things made in our regions, our neighborhoods, wisdom which comes through simplicity. Along these lines, many apps have been created which will allow for great gains in businesses, connecting supply and demand simply and easily. Moreover, with simplicity we have engaged in delivery models, which have exploded in this period and, by what we have seen, they will stay. There is a wicked side of this behavior, less consumption destroys job positions and this shall contribute to the increase of unemployment in the world, then we will need to be creative thinking of labor alternatives and minimum income, sustainable forms of inclusion for people.

4 - Engagement: this period of reflection has made people increase their social actions, their will to engage in causes connected in various ways and I believe this movement shall establish itself for good. Causes, mainly social, will have more supporters and a will to work with common challenges. Solidarity, the adoption of online evaluations, free guidelines, and recommendations to other people, participation in "clubs" and other forms of engagement will increase. In this scenario, a social prominence of companies and people will come up, acting more for the least fortunate.

5 – Neo-collectivism: as stated above, I believe in the strengthening of new pro-collective behavior and with that, the cooperative and associative models will find significant space and will benefit from the possibility of digital communication with their associated base. Mechanisms of crowdfunding, creation of communities and other forms of making the small great. Less "me" and more "us", more "be" and less "have". Collective actions will gain share in our behavior.

6 – Neo-nationalism: an increase of valuing by consumers, of what products manufactured in the country and governments may see that some essential supplies should be elaborated internally, our outside with secure supply chains and contracts aiming at a reduction of the international dependence. There will be a higher prioritizing of research and development, and innovation aiming at local manufacturing. Valuing locally made, tourism in the country and others. A new perception of sovereignty in the world is coming up.

7 - Infotoxication: During this isolation period, people have been exposed to a nonstop flow of information, having media networks and TV dedicated 24 hours to the same subject, with the traditional negative reports overlapping the positive ones. Some WhatsApp/WeChat groups and other forms of digital agglomerations create panic, and in many cases showd the need for psychological help, but they have also brought to parts of the population some filtering lessons. In their own ways, people have been trained in selecting what is relevant, verifying sources, and adjusting the volume of information to their tolerance capacity.

8 – Monitoring: digital systems allied to health needs will make people tolerate the growth of monitoring behaviors. Huge amount of data will be created that in one sense can lead to more efficiency and the tradeoff will be loss of privacy. I believe that this will bring an enormous impact in the public security matters, reducing the propensity to crime and other illegal activities, since the steps of criminals will be more evident and available to authorities. A new phase of transparency is approaching us, where civil society shall be able to follow digitally all of the processes, which involves the State and its purchases, making comparisons, etc.

9 - Sanity: In my opinion, this shall be another behavior change. A lot of knowledge, about health, hygiene, cleanliness, and contamination among others has been shared with the pandemic, and a part of it shall stay with the population after the crisis. Health-related research issues and public health systems will gain attention and the state shall have a fundamental role in this area investing and ensuring it to all.

10 - Nature: at this moment, nature and environment have been gaining space. The value of its details, species, sunrise and sunset, its preservation, the notion of how polluting urban activities are. Nature will benefit from the time that will be left for contemplation and valuing of our existence. Environmental approaches will gain supporters and attention.

I selected these 10 words in an attempt to translate the behavior changes derived from personal reflections, the isolation period, and quarantine. This personal reflection is for sure not unanimous, it will feed controversy and arguments, however, it is an exercise on what the near future may be like. Three details: a) not all the population will be affected by these 10 words/trends; b) Not all the 10 words/trends will affect a certain individual; c) I don't know for how long they will affect. I was affected by all 10, and I hope they will stay. It is interesting now to reflect on each one of them to understand how these changes shall affect businesses, bringing a new configuration in. In times of reinvention, this is my contribution to actions and improvements expected.

Marcos Fava Neves is a full professor of strategic planning and management at the Business Schools of the University of São Paulo (USP) and Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) in Brazil.