Good morning and welcome to Sunday AM.

BUSINESS

As previously written, business is about creating value, and the understanding of business is, of course, something that many are interested in understanding. This understanding is crucial since the company's who understand tomorrow's business have opportunities competition may not have. I found a great explainer video on Bain & Company's website - take a look at it here.

I hope you liked it.

A business serves customers, and when a company can't invent new products or services, it will, after some time, worst case, cease to exist. This typically happens to company's who don't listen to their customers. Maybe salespeople are not reporting back to management. Maybe management doesn't listen to their salespeople, technicians, or other people closer to the customers? Maybe the company has become self-sufficient and knows better than the market. This is unfortunately often seen, and I believe turning an old company in a new direction requires management like never before to achieve.

TECHNOLOGY

Some technologies have various life cycles, which I find pretty interesting. Do you remember when the QR code became mainstream? It was used everywhere, and though Toyota invented and used the QR code a long time before it became mainstream - the QR code was overused. Today the QR code is a valued and used tool, and with smartphones default able to read the codes, the usage from check-ins to restaurants, to even covid-tests. Still, as initially intended to identify parts in warehouses - the QR code seems to be here to stay. VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality) are something I've been reluctant to. Yes, of course, it's impressive and fun, and of course, I tried the 19 Criminal wines from Australia, and yes, I also bought VR glasses to try a virtual roller-coaster, and yes, it was fun I got dizzy. As with the QR codes, I may have missed a valuable application for ME to find it interesting. Though still not 100% convinced, I today used them looking at a house I am interested in. With the VR icon on the real-estate company's website, I could wear my VR glasses and walk into the house I am considering buying. It was, to be honest, a quite strong experience and greater than I expected. I will for sure try it again!

CULTURE

As you can see, I have decided to change the 'music' category to 'culture.' I will probably mostly share my thoughts and experiences on music. Still, with a broader term like culture, I can also write about theater, music, but also differences in cultures from country to country, work cultures, etc. So I can't wait to get started - but today, this is what you get - but stay tuned for more.

MEDIA

Today I will also skip this category!

Politics

I have just been on vacation in Austria, and one of the Austrian headlines that caught my attention was how the Austrian government has decided to change its view on the Covid-19 pandemic. Since March last year, governments in most countries have taken measures like never before to stop the pandemic. Though the measures financially and politically have been vast, the pandemic is a fact and still influences many people. The Austrian government decided to change its view on the pandemic from governmental responsibility to private/individual responsibility. The argument is very few people today get very sick because of the coronavirus, and even fewer die. The Covid-19 is an illness like so many other illnesses. In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also lifted many of the UK's regulations, and scientists around the globe are worried. The UK has fully vaccinated approx. 75% of its population, but still more than 50,000+ tests positive daily, and the scientists are nervous that the virus will mutate into a variant immune to vaccines. The world must open again, and the timing is, of course, crucial. The US continues to be closed to many countries. Still, organizations, companies, and of course, governments from the rest of the world pressure the Biden administration to open - let's see when that will happen!

TRENDS

I promised to dig into some trends in this week's Sunday AM article. So here we go. I found a pretty exciting read from McKinsey, and what I found particularly interesting was what they refer to as a stickiness index. We have all experienced many changes during the pandemic, like online shopping of grocery products, virtual meetings, e-learning, etc. All of these behaviors were forced out of necessity and served a particular purpose. If we couldn't go out shopping physically, we still needed grocery products and ordered these online. The stickiness index is an index indicating whether some of these trends will continue in the post-pandemic time.

Among the trends that McKinsey expects to stay is:

- Online buying of grocery products

- Use of virtual health care products/services

- Investments in homes

- And more

On the list of trends McKinsey expects to go away again is - and listen carefully, my print friends:

Remote education will go - and though the report doesn't specify further, I am confident that this includes virtual tradeshows, webinars, zoom meetings, etc. This is well-aligned with the conclusions I wrote about in my article "The virtual.drupa ends virtual events for good" - and the good thing is that McKinsey states that people prefer to come back to Live events.

See you next Sunday!

Jul 18, 2021

Author: Morten B. Reitoft

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