It is always hard to predict the future. With the presence of Corona throughout the globe we are still in a crisis, which makes to answer this question even more difficult. Yet, each crisis brings its own opportunities. The human history shows that, after each crisis, humans initiated new ideas and new ways of doing business, which resulted in advancing the society. For example, health care systems benefited from pandemics, tech companies flourished after financial downturns, and technological products and services became very easy to use and economical.
In 2010, the Noble economist winner Paul Romer said “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Current Corona crisis is not an exception. I am sure that entrepreneurship will not only survive, but will be rising during and after the Corona.
In the short term, as we have been witnessing, the national economies will shrink due to people’s mind set shifting toward saving mode and postponing buying nonessential products and services that are not needed immediately. Also, companies try to cut costs and develop their innovation by stepping out of their routine production lines and become creative problem-solvers.
We have seen many examples of this in the last 6 months. Business like H&M and Zara are now producing masks, gowns and other personal protective equipment for medical workers. Some distilleries converted their production lines for sanitizers. Several airlines are providing support to the health care business by training their staff and respirators are manufactured now by companies like 3M, Ford, GM and GE.
While it is a fact that some businesses such as hospitality, tourism and entertainment were hit very hard, working from home became the new norm. Use of Zoom, Skype, Cisco and Google and similar products for conferences and meetings allow the world to come together from wherever they are at a very reasonable cost.
I personally see this new trend to become a part of our future life of doing business - for teaching and holding webinars similar to the one we recently executed for the Women Enterprise Development Center (https://wedcbiz.org/event/paint-your-business-model-canvas-3/) I felt especially good with this video conferencing since it also reduced the travel and carbon emissions!
These new technologies will offer numerous opportunities, especially for the service businesses as we witness the recent trends for online shopping and entertainment where people hold social hours, graduation meetings etc. Smartphones with artificial intelligence (AI) already provide support in hospitals and in the health care community. There are vast opportunities for entrepreneurs who have an interest in logistics to build reliable and speedy delivery to its customers.
With the analysis of the past, we can reach reliable conclusions for the future. Each crisis comes to an end and entrepreneurs are fighters, optimistic and resilient people. These to me are the current signs for future entrepreneurship, which makes me feel positive and optimistic. I am hopeful that we will witness new ways of life, new entrepreneurs meeting new needs; new business models and new offers.