Many business leaders are recovering from the pandemic, and here are the top 10 business trends and opportunities to watch for in 2021.
The drastic change in people’s livelihood and lifestyle forces companies and entrepreneurs to adapt to their markets. Apart from consumer behavior, structures and strategies are also changing based on the state of economies worldwide.
How will the landscape look like for businesses next year? Here’s what you can expect:
Sustainability
Sustainability has been emphasized further when the coronavirus pandemic disrupted many aspects of society. Companies are encouraged to evaluate their operations, environmental impact, and the composition and usage of their products. Sustainability in business does not only attract customers who are seeking meaning in their purchases but also boosts a company’s brand and reputation. Most of all, sustainability is the business sector’s contribution to addressing environmental issues that also affect their operations and people. When employees get sick, companies will suffer as well.
Remote work
Governments imposed lockdowns and movement restrictions to contain the spread of the coronavirus. With this, companies have been forced to implement new systems and management styles to keep their remote workforce productive. For 2021, businesses are advised to rethink their business model and come up with solutions that can support their people who are working from home.
Videoconferencing systems that have become familiar to remote workers are Zoom, Cisco's Webex, Microsoft's Teams, Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting, and Verizon's. Startups Bluescape, Eloops, Slab, Figma, and Tandem run visual collaboration platforms where teams can share, interact, and monitor projects.
Telehealth and telemedicine
Private and public health enterprises have begun offering telehealth services such as doctor-patient video chats, no-contact-based medication delivery, and A.I. avatar-based diagnostics. Telehealth visits rose by 50 percent compared with pre-pandemic levels while IHS Technology sees that 70 million Americans would use telehealth by 2020. Teladoc Health, Livongo Health, One Medical, Amwell, and Humana are some of the public companies that provide telehealth services to meet the needs of people who are not able to go to the hospital. Startups like iCliniq, MDLive, MeMD, K Health, 98point6, Sense.ly, and Eden Health are also providing creative solutions in 2021.
Localization
Due to border closures, travel bans, and shutdowns of businesses across the world, many countries have to seek other sources or suppliers near them. With the consequences of the U.S. and China trade tensions, many companies must find new markets and come up with a new supply chain management strategy.
Social Engagement
Apart from video calls, social media is one of the online tools most used by people nowadays. With this, businesses are advised to improve their web presence and social media strategy. Their challenge is to engage with their customers and potential customers across social media. People will seek more authentic presence on social media and one that is less curated by social media experts, such as real behind-the-scenes of a company. Influencers and micro-influencers in the industry could also help drive conversations about one’s business.
Automation
Automation is being integrated into the systems of supply chains, warehouses, autonomous vehicles, ships, and trucks. One example is chatbots that automatically respond to customer inquiries. With businesses transferring to virtual spaces, they are finding ways to increase efficiency and streamline processes. Automating businesses frees up humans for repetitive tasks.
Contactless Delivery and Shipping
The U.S. recorded a 20 percent increase in preference for contactless procedures. DoorDash, Instacart, and Postmates provide drop-off delivery services. Grubhub and Uber Eats also expanded their contactless delivery services and will continue to do so in 2021. Meanwhile, China-based delivery apps started employing autonomous vehicles to respond to grocery orders to customers. U.S.-based startups Starship Technologies, Manna, and Nuro are also utilizing robotics and artificial intelligence-based applications.
Data as an Asset
Data is now an asset for businesses as it can help them understand their market and improve their decision-making. Cloud solutions allow people to access data from anywhere. With this, companies are encouraged to expand data literacy in their company in 2021 in order to take decision-making insights from it. This requires an investment in systems that can process and store the data flowing into the organization.
Decentralized Finance
One way for businesses to raise capital is through crowdfunding, blockchain technology, and other decentralized finance options. This is predicted to be big in 2021 as it allows businesses to get capital easier than through traditional channels.
Online Education and e-learning
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many countries were forced to close schools, affecting 1.6 billion people worldwide.
With this, schools, colleges, and coaching centers hold classes via videoconferencing. Some are delivering a portion of their curriculum online even after everything returns to normal. Among the top online learning platforms are 17zuoye, iTutorGroup, Yuanfudao, and Hujiang in China, Udacity, Age of Learning, Coursera, and Outschool in the U.S., and Byju's in India.
5G Technology
Mobility is becoming a key element in running business operations. 5G technology provides higher device capacity, lower latency, and faster connection speed. 5G, the fifth generation of mobile wireless communications technology, aims to deliver browsing and download speeds 10 to 20 times faster than the 4G network. 5G attracts IT teams of companies across the world. A study shows that 66 percent of businesses have or are planning to use 5G in 2020.
Gig Economy
In September, a report from Upwork revealed that 24% more people decided to dive into the gig economy this summer than in most normal years. "Normally, around 10% of freelancers have started freelancing sometime in the last six months. However, at the time of the survey in June-July 2020, 34% had started since the onset of COVID-19 in early March," per a blog post by Adam Ozimek, Upwork's chief economist. About 34% of the freelancers said they began during the onset of COVID-19 in early March. In other years, only 10% of respondents said they had started freelancing within the prior six months.
The layers of freelancing could be further explored in 20201. The U.S. Department of Labor previously announced that it will propose a rule to make categorizing workers as independent contractors easier for companies, Reuters reported. However, freelancers cannot unionize and collectively ask for higher pay. "A labor market and economy that's more and more made up of these independent contractors is all the more one where you're gonna have lower pay, stagnating wages and growing earning inequality," David Weil, former Wage and Hour Administrator for the Obama administration previously told Business Insider.
These are the top business trends for 2021.
