Article originally published at Forbes on May 01, 2020.
Imagine it is 2030. You have decided to reflect and trace back the origins of business trends that are now commonplace in 2030. What are you likely to discover?
For one, I believe a lot of inflection points in our business (and consumption) habits will be traced back to 2020. Here are seven significant trends that originated or got a boost as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic of 2020.
1. Working From Home
One of the most significant positives that came out of the pandemic is increased reliance on and preference for working from home (WFH). Besides the convenience and elimination of commutes, the biggest benefit of WFH came in the form of increased productivity (paywall). Yes, increased productivity: it didn’t take long for everyone to realize (and for companies to monetize) what many had only suspected previously: a lot of time at the office was wasted (30%, according to one study described in Inc.) in unnecessary meetings, partaking in office politics — voluntarily or involuntarily — clock-watching and gossiping.
Besides, forced WFH during the pandemic also brought about wider acceptance of decentralized, scattered and outsourced workforces. Business leaders learned to trust people without having them under the same roof. It also helped them downsize office size and reduce their office expenses (as much as $22,000 per employee per year, according to estimates from Global Workplace Analytics).
Of course, it didn’t (and it still doesn’t) work for everyone. Employers have always wanted and looked for self-driven, self-motivated workers. For WFH to succeed, these traits became critical differentiators and must-haves for anyone wanting to work from home after the pandemic.
2. Transportation
With more and more people working from home, the average number of miles driven came down significantly from 13,476 miles in the U.S. This alone helps explain the biggest secular decline the U.S. automotive industry experienced in its recent history.
On the flip side, it also eased pressure on our infrastructure. The need to expand roads and bridges went away. And the United States started looking more like a developed country.
3. Housing
Back in 2020, millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) had already seemingly begun questioning homeownership as a cornerstone of the “American dream.” This trend toward rental-living continued at a greater pace as millennials reached their prime earning phase through the decade.
A housing trend highlighted by The Washington Post in 2019 that got reversed is down-sizing. With increased adoption of WFH, the need for more space and increased privacy (for simultaneous Zoom calls by multiple members of a household) became obvious. Homes with home offices became the new norm. “Number of office-rooms” became part of standard home descriptions, alongside number of bedrooms, bathrooms and garage spaces.
4. Telemedicine
Initially, the industry got its day in the sun out of necessity. It was the only safe way to do a routine “visit” to a doctor during the pandemic. However, it didn’t take long for both patients and medical professionals to appreciate the efficiencies and safety of telemedicinal consultations for most simple ailments. This growth — which a 2020 report estimated would continue at a combined annual growth rate of 15.1% between 2020 and 2027 — was further boosted by the availability and adoption of home-use diagnostic gadgets and apps capable of tracking data like medical-grade ECG, blood pressure, sugar levels, heart and lung sounds, and so on.
This trend had a material impact on the cost of healthcare for facilities and consumers. It also drove increased acceptance of cash-patients for routine checkups and garden-variety ailments.
5. Handshakes And High-Fives
It is ironic that handshakes, a custom that may have started as a way to determine if the other person was armed and dangerous or not, lost its pole-position as a global form of greeting. Handshakes became prime suspects in the unwitting spread of the pandemic. Namaste, a well-established and traditional greeting in India, became a new preferred greeting the world over. High-fives got replaced by elbow bumps by businesspeople.
A significant fringe benefit of this was an overall reduction in all communicable diseases the world over. Say namaste to wellness and better health.
6. Shopping And Entertainment
By the time the novel coronavirus pandemic shook up the world in 2020, companies like Alibaba, Amazon and Flipkart had already established online retail as a formidable and existential threat to traditional brick-and-mortar retail, as Digitalcommerce360 estimated that e-commerce made up 16% of total retail sales in 2019. The pandemic simply stifled further life out of retail.
This time, it also brought down the prevalence of movie theaters and other crowded live entertainment in tightly packed settings as streaming became a bigger part of how people entertained themselves — mostly at home. (According to Nielsen data covered in Variety, streaming to TVs in the U.S. increased 85% in the first three weeks of March 2020 from a comparable time period in 2019.)
7. Food
Vegetarianism and veganism were more than mere curiosities at the start of the decade. (Eight percent of those aged 30-49 identified as vegetarian, according to 2018 Gallup data covered in Forbes.) Over the past 10 years, largely due to fears of another zoonotic pandemic like the havoc the coronavirus created in 2020, more people the world over became serious about reducing, if not entirely eliminating, animal proteins from their diets.
Of course, this had another positive impact on the general wellness of Americans. Cardiovascular diseases and obesity growth slowed its growth trajectory established (in the case of obesity) over 50 years ago.
Another significant fringe benefit of this trend has been a reduction of greenhouse gases and the easing of water shortages faced by many agrarian states in America. According to Science (via OurWorldInData), livestock and fish farms were responsible for 31% of greenhouse gas emissions for global food production in 2018. A global army of well-meaning environmentalists couldn’t achieve this, but an invisible life-form achieved it in quick order for them.
Now, bring yourself back from the future. It’s still 2020. But now that you have glimpsed at the future, perhaps you can navigate, and even carve out, your own future a little more confidently.
For more advice on developing a cohesive, effective marketing strategy, you can find Lies, Damned Lies, and Marketing on Amazon.
Atul Minocha is a partner at Chief Outsiders, a marketing consulting firm that helps CEOs accelerate growth through strategic planning, customer insight, and disciplined execution of well-crafted marketing plans. With experience in startups and Fortune 500 companies like Honeywell, Kodak, and Toyota, Atul works in a wide range of industries, from automotive and healthcare to industrial goods and technology. Atul has a degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and an MBA from Yale University. He is a professor at the Hult International Business School, a mentor and an angel investor with Sierra Angels, a Vistage speaker, and a Forbes contributor.