Throughout history, more billionaires and millionaires are made after a recession and economic crash than any other time. So how do you take advantage of this time?
The global economy will this year likely suffer the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression due to the Covid-19 pandemic, says the International Monetary Fund.
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The World Trade Organization also said that global trade will contract by between 13% and 32% this year. Also, the OECD has warned the economic hit from the virus will be felt “for a long time to come.” No one knows when the corona virus pandemic will end for economic activities to return to normal. But even as uncertainty abounds, life-changing opportunities will rear their heads.
Throughout history, events such as economic recessions and pandemics, have change the trajectory of governments, economies and businesses. The Black Death in the 1300s broke the long-ingrained feudal system in Europe and replaced it with the more modern employment contract.
The SARS pandemic of 2002-2004 catalyzed the meteoric growth of small companies like Ali Baba and helped establish it at the forefront of retail in Asia. This growth was fueled by underlying anxiety around travelling and human contact, similar to what we see today with Covid-19.
The financial crises of 2008 also produced its own disruptive side effects. Airbnb and Uber shot up in popularity across the west as the crises forced people to share assets in the form of spare rooms and car rides in order to cover for the deficit.
With Covid-19, we are already seeing early signs of a shift in how consumers and businesses behave. Remote working is being encouraged by tech and non-tech companies alike, supply chains are getting disrupted globally and retail stores are running out of ibuprofen, dry goods and toilet paper en masse.
Some of these changes are direct, short-term responses to the crises and will revert to regular levels once Covid-19 is contained. However, some of these shifts will continue on, creating a long-term disruption that will reshape businesses for decades to come.
While it’s more important to focus on getting out of the health risks posed by the outbreak, you need to keep your eyes on what lies ahead after this pandemic because this global pandemic will shape businesses for decades to come. Here are 7 businesses that will boom after the corona virus pandemic.
- Digital marketing
Digital marketing has experienced a boom over the past decade. But the industry is recording some loses as businesses are now cutting back on their digital marketing spending. However, the industry is likely to experience even a major boom after COVID-19. Many industries have experienced a significant decline to digital marketing usage since the lockdown; with travel, transportation and hospitality being the most hit.
Most businesses are currently shut down, with no cash-flow and companies are eating deep into their cash reserve. When this pandemic is over and businesses resume, most businesses will need to get their cash-flow back on track. Businesses will be open to innovative and affordable ways to reach customers. And digital marketing will be there to the rescue. This is an area you want to position yourself in. take this lockdown as an opportunity to develop your digital marketing skill.
- Stock Market Investing
A famous investment wisdom credited to the world richest investor, Warren Buffet, is, “be fearful when others are greedy; and greedy when others are fearful”. Typically, market crashes when people, out of fear of losing their money, start selling off their assets and cutting back on their spending. Stock price goes ridiculously down. This is usually the best time for smart investing. You can buy stocks at cheap prices and ride through the market recovery. But there are no guarantees that every stock will recover after a recession. Some companies may go bankrupt. Be sure to thoroughly research the stocks to invest in and seek expert advice.
- Online Education
The corona virus outbreak has caused schools; primary, secondary and tertiary institutions to close down. And no one knows how long students will have to stay at home. This reality has forced a crash course for online learning plans and technology for students and faculty. The world is going through a mandatory giant online education experiment. The aftermath could accelerate changes in the education industry that were already at play.
For over a decade, there have been predictions of online education going mainstream to rival traditional education. This change has seemed to be gradual over the years. But this virus outbreak may just give online education the moment it’s been waited for.
As digital learning goes mainstream in a hurry, that’s going to upend current education practices, models, and processes going forward. Traditional education will not go away, but online education will definitely mean greater adoption. Online training and businesses will boom post-COVID-19 and businesses that position in this space will benefit immensely.
- Online Collaboration Tools
How will the COVID-19 pandemic alter the future of teaching and learning? The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing schools, universities and learning and development professionals to shift rapidly from in-person to online learning. The global lockdown has focused people in large numbers to embrace a digital form of connection. And online collaboration tools have seen huge growth over the last few months.
As companies rapidly — and in some cases also permanently — move towards remote working, the market for digital collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts and Zoom is likely to grow quickly.
To add to that, we are already seeing growing demand for digital media and entertainment including social media, gaming, news, video streaming and books as people seek to relieve boredom and fill the time previously taken up with travelling and socializing face-to-face.
- Ecommerce
The Covid-19 crisis is pushing us to quickly adopt digital technologies, remote working and e-commerce. Alibaba, a Chinese online market place founded in 1999, got its major boost at the time people in China had to stay at home due to the SARS corona virus outbreak in 2002.
The quarantine came just as Alibaba was preparing to launch Taobao, an online marketplace for consumers that Jack Ma, the company founder, hoped would compete with eBay in China. Chinese consumers who were stuck at home started turning to the internet to order items. Alibaba benefited from the internet becoming increasingly necessary for doing business during the SARS outbreak, as businesses and consumers were driven online to buy and sell goods.
Due to self-isolation, people who normally visit physical stores are increasingly shopping online. The uplift in e-commerce may well become permanent if people remain wary of mingling in real life, and increasingly replace shop visits with online purchases.
You may think e-commerce has already taken off, but in most part of Africa for example, only a fracture of the population have bought something online. After this pandemic and beyond, e-commerce will likely gain more acceptance among the sceptics. We’ll see faster progress towards online retail. Companies and organizations will realize they have less need for expensive real-estate. We can expect this trend to continue going forward.
- Agriculture
One of the biggest challenges with the corona virus pandemic and lockdown is the threat to food security. While the lockdown may appear to be the solution to mitigate the spread of the virus, a major consequence is the shortage of food and hike in price. Covid-19 is disrupting agricultural activities around the world from the farm, harvesting to processing and supply. The closure of restaurants, eateries and hotels is creating low demand for agric produce. Agric businesses are now looking at digital technologies to sell their products. Although digital technology is not a new concept, the necessity will get even sceptics to embrace it. At the end of this pandemic or lockdown, we may face the risk of the low food supply. This will create more opportunities in the agric sector to produce food to feed the surviving population.
- The Gig Economy
As many companies will not want to have huge numbers of full-time employees (and fixed costs) after this crisis, this will accelerate the gig economy, freelance works and associated startups. You also want to start preparing yourself to function in a gig economy.
Over the longer term, Covid-19 has irrevocably changed the way businesses will compete over the next decade. Businesses that choose to capitalize on these underlying changes will succeed and the ones that don’t will get disrupted.
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