No going back — How fear of Covid-19 democratized technology
The fear of change can paralyze a person, a company and an entire society. It’s a natural occurrence — as humans, we are wary of what we do not know; we have trouble trusting what is foreign and new. As part of our survival instinct, we hold on to traditional ways of living because it feels safe. Even the greatest of technologies, like the internet and its all-encompassing transformative nature, was slow to change our societies. How many times did you hear that people would never order shoes or clothes online? That people needed to touch their fruits and vegetables and see them before buying. How many times did you hear that music could never be sold digitally; that the sale of televisions, cars and homes would never be done online? How many times did you hear, no, that won’t work… Why? Because that’s not the way we’re used to doing things?
Thirty years ago, it was unfathomable to visit a building virtually in real-time. Twenty years ago, it was unfathomable to have virtual doctor visits. Fifteen years ago, it was unfathomable to sell groceries online. Today, e-grocery is a $101bn market. But the change — the transition — was slow. It crept up on us over thirty years. Today, it is normal to buy train tickets online. It is now normal to get emails and check bank statements on the internet. It is normal to rent an apartment you’ve never seen on AirBnB or get a cab from a platform like Uber. Slowly, the invisible pull of innovation propelled us forward until our habits changed naturally. But what happens when we don’t have the time to get comfortable with the idea of a technology? What happens when we, as a society, are found with our backs against the wall — when the fear of what’s in front of us is greater than the technology we’ve been pushing against? What happens when we are forced to take a leap of faith?
Forced into change
Covid-19 is that greater fear. In banking, grocery, teleworking, medicine, or retail; In the face of a total lockdown of all of the major functions that keep our society going, we had no choice but to close our eyes and trust that the technology would help us. As a society, we had held back. Despite the warning signs, we held back on platforming our businesses and transitioning away from a strictly brick-and-mortar strategy, despite being increasingly supported by global digital technology infrastructures that would allow us to scale participation and collaboration. In the face of disruption, many dug their heels and continued business-as-usual, instead of opening up to innovation. Digitize was a word for the future — part of a revolution that would come one day for our children, or their children. But then Covid-19 happened, and we did what we had to do: We leapt and the technology was there to break our fall.
The pandemic, for all of the chaos it has put us through, pushed us into action. It has revolutionized commerce. To survive, retailers revamped their e-commerce strategies and opened online marketplaces to fulfill the changing demands of a confined consumer base. When factories across the world stopped being able to produce certain goods, marketplace operators were able to source products from the sellers who had them. When people wanted to exercise indoors, marketplace operators were able to quickly react, examine the trend and seamlessly pivot into offering treadmills, stationary bikes and whatever else their customers needed when they needed it. During this short time, 50% of buyers are shopping for items they’ve never bought online before the pandemic. Grocery stores adopted the online model for ordering and pick-up. They saw business rise by 24x. People are now twice as likely to buy bikes and cars online. It revolutionized work too. Employers who allowed and facilitated remote work — by leveraging virtual meetings and constant touchpoints outside traditional siloed options like email, with tools like Zoom, Teams or Google Hangouts Meet — are now looking at long-term remote options due to increased productivity across the board. Google, Facebook or Salesforce have told their workers they can now work remotely until 2021. Twitter has told their teams they can work remotely forever.
Forced into action
If we’d been given three years to plan for this pandemic, would we have acted so boldly? How many meetings might we have had to plan on the processes to transition our employees to remote work? How many consultants might it have taken to develop and organize ways to reinvent interactions with customers? How much planning would have gone to launch a drive-in and pick-up grocery option? How many calls to discuss the pros and cons of a digital strategy for a growing online consumer base? Had we had three years and billions of euros, surely we would have wasted those three years and that entire budget to do what we did collectively in three days. And I’m not saying that the transition was perfect. We are still learning and optimizing. But even if we’d had the three years to prepare, we’d still be changing things. As Yoda once said, “Do or do not, there is no try.” In this instance, Covid-19 didn’t give us that privileged time and we had to do. It forced us to ignore fear of technology and fear of change. It unburdened us from the arguments we’ve used every time a new technology disrupts our society. Fear of the unknown, which had paralyzed us for decades, was trumped by our fear of the virus. It pushed us to act quickly because we understood collectively that the impact of our inaction would be more consequential than the technology.
In this month, we have moved faster and with more agility than we would have in a decade. Covid-19 forced us into action.
Governments, scientists, public and private enterprises have worked together to push forward as a collective. And the technology has acted as a bridge, enabling us to continue to do business, work, learn and live virtually. But it is the people and their resilience who should be congratulated. As Jack Ma, CEO and founder of Alibaba said in Paris: “Young people are not afraid, if you are afraid it means you are too old.” By embracing these new tools so swiftly, we’ve been able to speed advancement for all and across all verticals proving that as a society we are neither too old nor are we too afraid. In a short amount of time, Covid-19 forced us to trust in technology. Fear of the damage of the virus may have been the motivator, but as a society we moved the clock forward. While the health crisis forcibly sped up a process of digitizing our society, humans have thrived because of it. Covid-19 democratized technology and there is no going back.
