Is COVID-19 The New Normal Or A Black Swan?
Is COVID-19 The New Normal Or A Black Swan? Every day we are coming to terms with the new challenges of a pandemic. These challenges definitely point us to more permanent changes that we must be made in both our personal lives and also in our businesses. While many call it a black swan, it of course is (largely by our preparedness) and it is also setting a clear stage for a new normal. This edit looks at this perspective in the context of fashion & lifestyle retail businesses.
I heard someone saying in a lighter sense, our political leader travelled to 102 countries in the last 4 years but Covid-19 has surpassed that in 4 months by travelling to over 170 countries. That is something moving at exponential speed through geographies and communities.
We have experienced exponential growth in other areas like carbon emissions, population growth, etc. As it was hard to visualize the impact of these, we reacted late and also at slower speeds. We also have seen success in areas like computing power, connectivity, childhood poverty, etc. What can we learn from these areas?
At a macro level, the following themes will shape our world,
a) Earth’s boundaries/ resources It is under research on the spread of Covid-19 through bats/pangolin as we started living in where they are supposed to be. Two articles on this (1) and (2).
b) We are all connected: A CDC article on this here.
c) Climate Change & Health Issues are related: A ScienceDirect article on this here.
Let us look at what this means to Fashion and Lifestyle brands and retailers.
# New Normal for Retailers
If you look at the trend in terms of google search in the last few weeks, across UK, Germany, and the US, while one would have expected a surge in online trends, even the online trends show a decline except for amazon (understandably they deal in essential commodities).
At least there is trading happening and there is demand in the online channel.
Those brands who do not have a significant presence in the online channel will be the most affected not to ignore the fact that online can never completely compensate considering its contribution.
In the context of global connectedness and impact across borders, the current paradigm of Efficiency needs to move also into Business Resilience & Risk Reduction. Businesses should not always look at the lowest cost for their supplies. Here is a call out for leaders and finance professionals included to look at cost from different perspectives.
What can be the new normal in the supply chain?
The way it looks, we will all start getting used to remote working and the amount of travel that we do may not actually be required. This will be driven by technology and our own habit changes. This will also enable a systemic contribution to climate change objectives.
The fashion industry, in general, does a lot of physical interactions as the partners, employees need to interact to make decisions, book orders (need to see, touch, and feel), also do a lot of internal reviews in physical meets (as many of the resources in particular products are in the form of physical samples). There is a lot of research also done through travel across domestic and international locations. We see a significant shift in these areas.
As in any game and also in business, those who are well prepared are the ones who win. #PlanToWin #PrepareToWin
Here is the triad of new normal.
These are some of the new normals we envisage in the time to come. We also see fashion events getting digital. Also, small screens will become the key marketing drivers.
You may add your perspectives of what would enable brands and retailers to get better prepared for the future.
We are happy to share with you, that we just launched our new website Stylumia.ai, giving you a comprehensive view of our solutions & benefits, challenges we solve, the team, blogs & insights, press coverage, select clients & customer speak. Hope you will find it useful.
Now you decide If you want to live with the new normal or a black swan. If you are interested in transforming your fashion and lifestyle business embedding intelligence into design research, pre-season prediction, wholesale recommendation, in-season BI, in-season predictive distribution, please reach out to us to make your business prepare for the New Normal, before it’s too late.
