Rakesh Wadhwa:

Since you're a futurist, what do you see disappearing from the world, a product or service or a way of doing things as the result of this pandemic.

 

Keith Coats:

What this pandemic has accentuated are trends that were in place prior to it! So let me pick maybe an obvious one. And that is in retail high street. Basically walk in retail has been warned for years that all the tendency is going to online by online shopping. And that if I am going to walk into a shop, it's not necessarily to buy the product but it's to have an experience. It's a different kind of orientation. And what this global pandemic has done overnight is shut down high end retail. Consequently, what has gone through the roof is online buying. So we've been tracking which businesses have benefited by online buying.

One interesting business that I wouldn't have anticipated that has grown exponentially, in fact, the biggest growth online has been in tele meds. So, if the biggest growth has been at tele medicine, for a good number of big pharmaceutical clients, I don't expect that to come back to pre COVID levels. It might drop a bit, but it's still going to stay out there and if it does stay out there, it's going to impact on the medical practitioners. Practice won't be the same as it was. So, I think retail is an obvious one. Medical or telemedicine is another obvious one. And I think what this pandemic has done is accelerates trends that were already in place and we just need to pay attention to those.