Unexpected events, known as black swan events, including economic recessions and pandemics, have the power to change the course of governments, economies and businesses, often altering the course of history. The Black Plague in the 1300s ended the long-ingrained feudal system in Europe and replaced it with the modern employment model. Just three centuries later, an economic recession, in part thanks to the 100-year war between England and France, kickstarted a significant wave of innovation which drastically improved agricultural productivity. 

Fast forward to modern times, where the SARs pandemic of 2002 - 2004 catapulted the skyrocketing growth of the then-small eCommerce organisation called Ali Baba, resulting in it becoming one the best retailers in Asia. The growth of this company was fuelled by underlying fear and anxiety in travelling and spreading of the disease, which is pretty much on par with what we're experiencing today with the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, consider the financial crisis of 2008, which also had disruptive side-effects. Airbnb and Uber skyrocketed in popularity across the world, starting in the west due to the subprime crisis which meant lower savings and incomes for the masses, effectively forcing individuals to share assets in the form of ride shares and renting of spare rooms. 

With the current COVID-19 pandemic, we already see early signs in a shift of how consumers and companies behave. Remote working is suddenly booming and being encouraged by tech and non-tech companies, airline profits are dwindling, and global supply chains are being disrupted. 

Of course, many of these changes could be short-term responses to the crisis we face and should return to normal levels once the coronavirus is contained. However, many of the current shifts we're observing are likely to continue well beyond the pandemic, effectively creating a long-term digital disruption which will mould businesses for decades to come. 

The three dimensions of impact. 

Pandemics have direct impacts on biological, psychological and economic dimensions. The intensity of the effects varies depending on the mortality and morbidity rate of the pathogen as well as the time it takes to spread. 

With COVID-19, the biological impact has escalated quickly and has hit the elderly the hardest. The psychological effect is clear from the waning stock markets around the world. Investors are unsure of the future as the information on the spread of COVID-19 and its impact on global productivity is at best incomplete. Moreover, the global populace also faces psychological impact as low morale, and increased isolation comes into play. 

Last, but certainly not least, the economic impact has been significant. In the short term, the supply of various essential products has disrupted with the supply of what governments deem non-essentials have been curtailed. If this continues, COVID-19 could ultimately affect global GDP negatively. 

Longer-term innovation and diversity in trends will come about as consumers and corporations try earnestly to normalise the impact on psychological and economic dimensions. Provided containment is reached, and the biological effect is solved. 

Recessions usually bring about an acceleration in business model transformation, driving down costs to serve and prices. In addition to this, pandemics have the unique ability to drive entirely new forms of businesses. Moreover, it's quite clear that pandemics and other black swan events are indeed accelerants in innovation as opposed to being direct causes of it. For example, freelance work platforms have been around for ages; however since the advent of this pandemic, business has been booming for them. 

With specific findings and frameworks in mind, below are three macro innovations we can expect to see once the COVID-19 pandemic is resolved.

Supply chains will merge into resilient ecosystems. 

It's no secret that for years, global supply chains have shift gears in retaining quality relatively constant while lowering costs significantly at every step. It's this approach which has resulted in notable concentration risks in terms of territories and vendors for several conglomerates. Take China, for example, the nation's scaling down as a result of COVID-19 created a knock-on effect on supply impacts which are still experiencing today. There is an urgent need for more distributed, coordinated and trackable supply of components across several geographies and vendors while also maintaining economies of scale. This will require global platforms to be established utilising sophisticated technologies such as 5G, IoT, blockchain and robotics to aid the linking of multiple buyers with multiple vendors across a mesh of new supply chains. Moreover, this will also have a knock-on effect on the adoption of self-driving cars and delivery drones as the demand for eCommerce logistics will outmatch the need for human-capital to fulfil them.  

Digital bureaucracies will enter the mainstream.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has resulted in government bureaucracies taking action faster than ever before. China broke world records when they constructed their 645,000 square foot hospital in just ten days in Wuhan. South Korea was at the helm of testing over 200,000 of its citizens, utilising smartphones to track the movements of infected and alerting non-infected of the movements via real-time updates. 

These kinds of revolutionary efforts, as well as the transparency of the biological impacts, could have been improved if the world had more smart cities. As per a study conducted by the University of Glasgow, as little as twenty-seven out of five thousand five hundred large cities are considered to be leaders in this area. As governments learn from the pandemic, they could ultimately shift investments in favour of smart cities which could be crucial in handling and managing the next black swan event. 

Cisco, Microsoft and Siemens are a handful of key players who could benefit from this shift in gears from potential smart governments. 

Mental health support could globally be provided at scale, digitally.

It's obvious to predict that this pandemic could be an accelerant for remote working and online education. What is difficult to determine is what will occur once the majority of the knowledge workforce is required to work together remotely. It's more than the likelihood that this shift will have an impact on the morale, productivity and mental health of workers globally and companies need to prepare for it. 

For companies seeking to add a human touch digitally to their workplace, the choices available are limited. Take Humu, a startup founded by ex-Google HR chief Laszlo Bock, who is in the prime position to capitalise on this. Moreover, a handful of other tech companies such as Github and Automattic, who operate predominantly on a remote collaboration model, could focus their efforts and capabilities to help other companies survive. For the individual who works remotely, things are looking much better. There are several mental health startups like Moment Pebble and Braive who can double down on their efforts in solving issues faced by isolation. Lastly, business networking apps such as Ripple can work towards solving problems found in the mentoring and developmental challenges which come with being a remote worker.

A post-COVID-19 world. 

COVID-19 is without a doubt one of the biggest knocks the global economy has taken in years. Let's not forget the thousands of individuals and families which the virus outbreak has affected. Businesses in the immediate term need to make sure that the health and safety of their workers, partners and suppliers come first. In the longer-term, COVID-19 has notably changed the way companies will compete during the next ten years. It's the firms who opt to capitalise where they can on these underlying changes which will succeed while resilient companies will be disrupted.