Just because something has never happened before, doesn’t mean it won’t happen. This is just as much of a life-lesson as it is a principle of investing. And in many ways, the current COVID-19 crisis is proving this very point.
Post-9/11, there was a logical order to the industries that suffered: travel, tourism, hospitality. Air carriers and airlines filed for bankruptcy, air passenger volume didn’t surpass its pre-9/11 peak until 2005, and small businesses in the vicinity of the World Trade Center closed.
But amidst COVID-19, the thread between negatively impacted industries is harder to trace. Shutting down anything that involves crowds or risks exposure is an expansive, unpatterned mandate—and the effects are reverberating in places we never could have anticipated.
There is, however, a clear connection between industries that are thriving. Industries that are essential to moving us forward and out of this crisis are prospering—and will continue to prosper—in the post-coronavirus economy. The healthcare, technology, and fintech industries will not crash. They will continue to innovate, continue to sell, and ultimately, their voices will constitute a larger piece of the business communications pie. Here’s why.
Uncertainty sparks creativity—and these industries face drastic demand
Adapting to overwhelming demand, the healthcare, technology, and fintech industries are working with what they have to meet an exponentially higher capacity of people. While in many cases, particularly those pertaining to healthcare, the circumstances are risk-ridden and dire, it stands to reason that the industry will nonetheless emerge more adaptable, resilient, and efficient than it ever was before.
For healthcare workers who aren’t directly treating coronavirus—psychiatrists providing psychiatric care, primary care physicians conducting consults, physical therapists tending to patients, and so many more—telemedicine is infiltrating fields and scenarios that it might have never otherwise touched. Removing the need to travel to an office, manually sign-in, and wait in the waiting room is proving beneficial for many—including healthcare companies who are seeing the savings. Why would they go back?
Technology providers and companies—especially for business software—are seeing wider, higher volume use than ever before. The old “couldn’t this meeting have been an email?” is under the ultimate test—and employees are finally getting their answers. Internal messaging platform use is rapidly rising, platforms for high-capacity conference and video calls are flourishing, and remote work is the new normal. As we continue to implement these tools into our workflows when we have no other choice, they quickly become essential to the way we work. After the crisis calms, it may not make sense to go back to manual, paper-based, or in-person solutions without risking business efficiency—or employee satisfaction.
Banks and other lending institutions, that have typically been behind the curve in the move to digital, have been given no other choice but to adopt fintech tools, especially as workloads multiply while businesses scramble to secure their finances and apply for government loans. Digital document uploading and processing solutions, digital loan origination software, digital lending software, and the like, are the only efficient options. And customers, especially younger business owners, don’t want to visit a branch, anyways. Why would they revert back to the old way of managing their finances after all of this is over?
Crisis accelerates innovation—and it’s always been a race to the next advancement
In addition to scaling existing resources, healthcare, technology, and fintech industries are innovating at faster rates, creating crisis-responsive products as new needs arise—and repeatedly generating unprecedented solutions for unprecedented problems.
Artificial Intelligence companies are adapting to the healthcare space—even if they’ve never worked within it before, and building accurate, speedy, and scalable solutions that have already altered the trajectory of the industry. They’ve built solutions to track and report coronavirus cases in real-time, identify and diagnose the virus, and even develop drugs to help treat it.
Drones are delivering medical supplies, and robots are disinfecting hospitals to slow the spread of the virus. Chatbots are answering caller questions across industries, insurance claims are being processed through fintech and automation solutions, and supercomputers are fast-tracking vaccine development.
The bottom line? These are powerful solutions that will persist long after COVID-19, already transforming the way we will treat diseases, infections, and viruses around the world, and setting a new standard for the future of technology-based care delivery.
Change persists—things won’t just snap back to the way they were
Hard-pressed to accommodate unforeseen and unpredictable circumstances, the healthcare, technology, and financial industries are moving farther ahead at faster rates, while others slow and struggle to survive at all. After the dust settles, everyone’s survival will depend on catching up to where these industries have gotten—not reverting back to the way things were. And communicating your post-crisis potential will be essential.
If you could use a hand crafting your own coronavirus response copy, contact MarketSmiths today.
