Driving the next normal 2021 and beyond

Out of everyone expected, COVID-19 pandemic took longer to go over.  Despite having the vaccine start rollout in November and December last year. But we are impacted by COVID-19 variants that spread at 10 times faster than previous years.

Like it or not, the COVID-19 pandemic continues, whatever previous thoughts about the next normal will be shifts. Enterprises of various sizes across the world need to adjust, and they need to reimagine the next normal 2021 and beyond. Since many physical restrictions and lockdowns remain in many geographies, most enterprises need to close again or significantly relook into making remote work permanent for the future to come. This will bring in press for the spending on office spaces and eliminate excessive staff for the long run.

Cost containment or management remain the top and highest priority across the world. At the same time is how to expand and accelerate digital capability for every employee to business organization. Process automation, cloud migration accelerated and reduced and downsizing on the office space spending will be something shift the world.

Companies may not have the time to reskill employees since rapid reorganisation is called for. As a result, we see more merger & acquisition (M&A), takeover, downsizing will continue to happen for the next couple of years. Since the world economy indeed takes time to recover, in particular for those sectors already badly hit from the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic. We will see a new wave for stick to core competency movement will continue, while most of enterprise will start sell off non performing and non core business to downsizing to stay competitive for the changing market landscape.

Companies are being challenged to look into essential remote work, and among all the current, who is necessary to be kept and who else do not deliver business productivity. Quarantines, lockdowns, and self-imposed isolation all have put billions of people worldwide to work from home (WFH) temporarily, but the business productivity will not be justified for most of the business case. As such, we expect the longer COVID-19 pandemic continues, the higher chance for downsizing or rightsizing will happen. Excessive workers need to move to other sectors where the new recruitment opens, in this difficult time, if any.

Let’s get real, most of the work in the first place does not design to be work remotely at all, we expect a new norm will be forged as this continues. New class of employees who can perform in work from home (WFH) will rise, and at the same time, those who can not cope and adapt for the change will be eliminated. Digitally enabled productivity gains accelerate, a new and better way for work in the digital manner emerges, once we get used to new ways for remote work. We expect more people will work with project and business process centric compare in the past division of work by unit, department and division. Cloud and edge computing, pairing with web and automation technology break all the barriers on how the new business productivity can be gained, are you ready for the modern office way for work? If you do not, you are better to take the self initiative to reskill before the next way of rightsizing will impact you.

E-SPIN in the business for enterprise ICT consulting, solution architect, supplying, project management, training and maintenance for corporation and government agencies across the region E-SPIN did business, since 2005. Feel free to engage E-SPIN for the next normal initiative and requirements.