Survey
The Future of Business
CMW REPRODUCES HERE A SLIGHTLY ABRIDGED VERSION
OF A RECENT SURVEY FROM INFORMA CONNECT
Key insights to
come out of the
study include:
rom accelerated
digitisation of the
workplace, with millions
suddenly working from
home, to manufacturers pivoting and
actually changing their products to help
the world cope with new and sudden
needs, never before seen or experienced
phenomena are happening in businesses
around the globe.
Against this background, Informa
Markets undertook a deep dive into how
Covid-19 is impacting its global
customers to share this crucial data with
them and also a wider readership.
Why are people in sectors from the
life sciences to maritime innovating?
Where are they doing it? How
successful are their efforts? were some
of the questions the survey of Informa
Connect’s customers, speakers and
thought leader contacts pursued in the
course of finding out how their
organisations were responding to the
Covid crisis.
The research showed that the most
important changes happening now in
organisations fell into the following four
categories:
• How organisations manage crises,
both before and after Covid-19
• The shift to online and working from
home or other changes in the workplace
• How companies are trying to be
relevant to their customers
• How companies have applied
innovations with new business
initiatives or products and creating
efficiencies.
Informa Market’s resultant
first-of-its-kind multi-sector report,
The Future of Business Post Covid-19,
shows that novel coronavirus has indeed
been a disruptor, but in many cases
companies have been able to turn this
disruption into a positive force by
innovating and accelerating the creation
of new products, as well as cultivating
deeper relationships with their
customers.
“67%
of those
surveyed
have either
developed or
accelerated
a new
product, or
introduced
initiatives
to better
connect
with
customers.”
• 87% of respondents feel that the
crisis has impacted the need for
digital transformation in business
• 34% developed a new product,
service or business initiative in
response to the crisis; 40%
introduced initiatives to better
connect with customers and 26%
accelerated development of an
already planned product
• 47% of respondents put in place a
dedicated crisis response team to
respond to Covid-19.
• 85% believe their organisation can
cope with at least some of their staff
continuing to work from home and
43% believe their companies can cope
with large numbers of staff doing so
An 30 April a Savanta survey of US
consumers presented a startling figure:
namely that just 24% of respondents
planned to go about life the same as before
once emerging from lockdown. This
means that business innovation is crucial
right now.
Management consultants McKinsey
recently stated that, “It’s possible that
entirely new businesses and business
models will emerge from the crisis”. That
is a point clearly back up in the results of
the Informa Markets survey.
Organisations have been poised to
digitally transform their workforces for
some time; right now is a turning point,
with ‘trials by fire’ bringing in both
interesting and unforeseen data.
The Informa Markets survey results
show that Covid-19 has indeed been a
ISSUE 108 / CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD / 43