The future after Corona in Germany (and in other countries)
I’m just thinking back to January this year. The new year has just started and the Covid 19 pandemic is not yet relevant in Germany. Everything is going well, the economy is booming and politicians spread good mood. A few weeks later, everything is different. Exit restrictions, economic worries, people with masks. Now everything as slowly returning to normal. But how will the future look like? What will be the new normal? Below you will find a few thoughts, based on my own observations and on discussions with my clients.
1. Administration is going digital
The pandemic in Germany has shown how digital the administration is — and what we saw was not good. Authorities are not accessible or are difficult to access at best, administration services are sometimes not available because personal contact is still required but this is currently not permitted. Even simple processes such as re-registering cars or registering residence are possible in a digital way only in exceptional cases. But that will change. Because the citizens have now seen where the deficits are. The assertions of politicians in the past, “We are making good progress with the digitization of the administration”, turned out to be a farce. Citizens will no longer accept this in the future.
2. Business meetings will be virtual
There are a large number of buildings in Germany that serve as a place for holding meetings or conferences. The pandemic has shown that online meetings serve their purpose and even have advantages over personal meetings: there is no travelling, which saves time and money, the organization of meetings becomes easier because questions like the physical size of a room and the type of catering are no longer important, and even the spontaneous use of additional rooms for 1-to-1 meetings is no problem online. These are all immense benefits that have become apparent in the past few weeks. However, this is not good news for the operators of such conference centers, since customers will not come back in the masses as before the crisis.
3. Consulting requires new skills
Personal meetings and a lot of paper — this is how typical consulting process often looked, be it in the legal field, in the field of taxation, in the field of finance or in another area of consulting. However, the limited personal contact in times of Corona, combined with the continuing need for advice in certain areas, requires new skills from corresponding service providers. This will improve the flow of information: data must be sent, signed and forwarded without manipulation being possible. This requires the knowledge and use of a variety of new tools, because customers will dictate what should be used. But there will also be a new way of addressing customers. Because the personal meeting of potential customers will become rarer: the customers have learned that virtual contact is not as “strange” or “unpleasant” as always thought. Chatbots and videos will be used more and the general skills in dealing with media will improve.
4. Communication will be rethought
How do we communicate? The pandemic has shown that communication is an essential element of our lives. But the way in which communication is carried out was relatively one-dimensional: the human-to-human communication dominated. That will change in the future. If people will continue to move communication and interaction into virtual spaces, then the question arises whether real people will be needed in these virtual spaces. And that will mean as a consequence, that communication will be not only carried out by real people but by computers. And we will not see much of a difference. Especially avatars, computer programs that imitate people, will ensure that multiple things can be done simultaneously by people or by computers. The use of these possibilities will require completely new skills, both in the use of computers and in the interaction with the other person.
5. Entertainment will become multi-dimensional
We like to be entertained and distracted. This shows the increased use of Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ in the past few weeks. Watching films, especially if a cinema is no longer required for a release, but film premieres are possible at home, no longer requires a visit to a cinema. The pandemic has shown that it is wonderful to be entertained at home. Therefore, the offer in cinemas will change. Just sitting in an armchair and watching a film on the screen no longer has any appeal. That is why the range of multisensory offers will increase — the integration of fragrance, of movements including add-ons like wind simulation and the use of special sound effects will distinguish the cinema experience from the home cinema experience. And this experience will become better and more immersive. Because in the future it will be possible to immerse oneself in the film experience up to the feeling of hugs or touches.
I recently wrote for the online magazine „BASIC thinking“ that there are great opportunities in the pandemic (in German language). I am now even more convinced that these opportunities will manifest themselves. The implementation of the options that were only thought of a few weeks ago will accelerate enormously. The changes will be impressive. I don’t want to rule out that the Covid 19 pandemic will be seen as a catalyst for big change in a few years. Let us be surprised — I look forward to it!
The German version of this article can be found on the blog “BASIC thinking”.
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I am a commercial lawyer by profession, one of the co-founders of “Gründen@Würzburg”, the startup initiative of the German city of Würzburg and an ambassador for the “Großer Preis des Mittelstands”, the biggest and most prominent privately organized German award for companies of the German Mittelstand. Oh, and I founded two other companies besides my law firm and work currently on founding my third….
I also had the honor to be the President of the G20 Young Entrepreneurs´ Alliance (YEA) Germany and the Chairman of the Steering Committee of the G20 YEA, an organisation that is the voice of more than 500.000 young entrepreneurs in the G20 countries (www.g20yea.com) . By invitation of the European Commission, I had the pleasure to participate in the annual SME Assembly, the most important event for small and medium-size enterprises in Europe. Additionally, I was a member of the B20 Task Forces and from 2014 to 2017 the General Legal Counsel and also a member of the national board of JCI Germany (WJD — Wirtschaftsjunioren Deutschland), the biggest organization for young leaders and entrepreneurs in Germany.
As a lawyer and owner of the law firm “Lexa Legal”, I advises German and international clients (who want to do business in Germany) in corporate and commercial legal matters.
