Challenges of the 21st CENTURY – The Tsunamis hitting us - continuously

Even before COVID-19 came on the scene, we were already facing a massive change to our way of life and business, but COVID-19 caused a great pause and a re-set of our world.

Here is a list of events that are casing or going to cause a major change to our economies and our lives for the better or worse.

If we do not adapt, we will be irrelevant. The below is a small list of the disruptions we face today.

• COVID-19 related impact on all things.
• COVID-19’s impact on mental health, family ties, business and job markets
• Artificial Intelligence – our lives will start being increasingly be managed by AI and at times with no ability of a human to override,
• Internet of Things,
• 5G and 6G.
• E-commerce,
• Drones and robotics,
• Blockchain and Digital coins,
• Greater data integration between Government departments, banks and across countries,
• Higher requirement for information sharing, checks and balances on the integrity of that information.
• An international company could destroy a local business.
• Governments adapting digital transformation.
• Mobile/app-based business.
• Mobile banking.
• Mobile based education – education on the fly (assisted self-learning).
• Faster and viral customer feedback – reputational damage.
• Asymmetrical warfare.
• Cyber-attacks and cyber blackmail.
• Digital fraud – Crypto traders vanishing with fiat currency. Customers left with virtual currency
• Disruption to banking and finance – more digital, less human.
• Telecommuting, tele-teaching, tele-medicine; redefining office, education, and medicine.
• Virtual businesses – the gig economy.
• Data cloud.
• Climate change – both natural readjustment to our industrialization, leading to water and heat levels rising in some places and falling in others. Damages and disruption.
• Shortage of critical elements for micro chips.
• Transfer of wealth.
• Greater unemployment.
• Greater government support needed to restart the economies
• Intellectual laziness driven by social media sound bites.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” Charles Darwin
 

For Businesses – this means to evolve, prepare to reinvent internally, and change as soon as the market forces that change. All industries will not change rapidly – but they WILL change eventually, and some will vanish completely.
 

The call is for MORE cooperation rather than competition – at least until most of the world is back on its feet – then back to the good old days of fierce competition.