The COVID- 19 pandemic has hit business hard, just as it has hit human life. It is especially been hard on older people, across the major countries hit which are China, Italy, South Korea, France, Germany, Iran and Spain. Extraordinary measures are needed to limit the spread. Gradual control is being wrested by effectively using the best practices known to public health. South Korea for instance acted quick to limit the spread. The rapid increase in testing was a game changer. At places where the initial control was unsuccessful, the health systems got overwhelmed. Companies worldwide are responding to the situation within a broad five sets of actions. The first is workforce protection. This involves policy management, talent management, effective communication and improved on- site norms. The next is for supply- chain stabilization. The third is customer engagement. Stress testing of the financials is the next. The last major step is for nerve- centre integration. This involves the alignment of the leaders with the redefined corporate strategy. A portfolio of options needs to be explored across different work streams.

Source:https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/risk/our-insights/covid-19-implications-for-business

Uploaded Date:24 March 2020

Climate change is going to play a major role in deciding how the physical spaces will get transformed and ways human will use them. Several natural risks and catastrophes have already altered the land use patterns. It is also severely impacting mortgage and insurance firms. To work towards the now needed resilience, there are 5 Rs that companies and governments need to take care of. These are- Reinforce, Rebuild, Rebound, Restrict and Retreat. Reinforce is about refurnishing buildings, as done in Houston, to make them safer against floods or earthquakes. Rebuild relates to building new structures, also followed in Houston. Rebound is particularly helpful for Miami, and is about trying to co- exist in a newer environment. Allowing for some limitations, as done in California is about the Restrict approach. And finally, there is Retreat, which is the approach followed in Maryland. The historic downtown has been abandoned in Ellicott City, a business innovation, that will help the residents survive.

Source:https://hbr.org/2019/10/climate-change-is-going-to-transform-where-and-how-we-build?utm_campaign=hbr&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Uploaded Date:24 October 2019

The human population today worldwide, is much wealthier than has ever been. As per business intelligence shared by the venerable World Bank, there are fewer people living in poverty now than in the year 1820, even though the world population has risen seven times. This however, paints only a small part of the overall picture. This is because of some factors that have done much to erode legitimacy in these macro- claims. The first of these is an asymmetry in income, which has also led to the near wiping out of a viable middle- class. Technological churn has meant large- scale business disruption. Increase in life span has meant increasing demographic pressures. Several governments have been accused of taking up populist measures, especially those with a nationalistic lens, hugely curbing the scope of business growth. And finally, there is the ever- declining trust factor.

Source:https://www.strategy-business.com/article/A-crisis-of-legitimacy?gko=9c234

Uploaded Date:14 October 2019

Businesses are under constant dilemma on whether they must raise their voice against any injustice or whether they must stick to creating maximum value for their stakeholders. This debate is necessary to be had within the present context where capitalism is headed to. A lot of companies will simply resort to looking the other way, and defending past actions as the right thing within the circumstances. But capitalism cannot succeed without providing all kinds of freedoms. Individual rights count for utmost importance here. Some feel that businesses must work as activists. Free collaboration is needed to ensure the birth of business innovations. There has to be adherence to privacy norms as well, along with participation of the labour force. A lot of these ideas have been captured, and debated at length in the latest book titled Fishing with Dynamite.

Source:https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/business-in-society/

Uploaded Date:28 September 2019

The future of work in much of America is a matter of debate. Some feel it could be bleak, while others have devised solutions for the same. One thing clear, is that the health of local businesses will largely determine the area’s ability to cope up in the upcoming age of automation. There is now an evolution going on in the nature and the location of the US job market. One trend has been that local economies have witnessed divergent trajectories for some time now. This trend will further widen over the coming decades. Automation will not have the same impact across all jobs or geographical locations. Talent recruitment of lesser- educated people, will get increasingly difficult. Unique challenges will now be faced by the young and old alike. Business leaders, educators and policy makers will together need to chart out a course to get the best out of the increasing automation at work.

Source:https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/the-future-of-work-in-america-people-and-places-today-and-tomorrow

Uploaded Date:16 August 2019

Several game- changing transformation are taking place in the business world. The convergence of communications technology and computers is one, while another is the shift towards renewable energy, away from fossil fuels. Self- driving cars are already part of the scheme of things. Jeremy Rifkin, who is a business commentator, has argued for wholesale changes to the way, corporations and the economy are run, to ensure sustainability in the future. He has written three successive books to highlight his views, and is also presently a Lecturer in the Executive MBA programme at the Wharton School of Finance. He argues that the investor- based capitalism should soon be replaced by a more streamlined network- based system. Innovations such as the Internet- of- Things and Blockchain will help facilitate this new wave.

Source:https://www.strategy-business.com/article/Jeremy-Rifkin-on-How-to-Manage-a-Future-of-Abundance?gko=3a999

Uploaded Date:29 July 2019

The term Impact Economy got introduced in the year 2007. A thriving impact economy will help boost global growth while also solving several environmental and social issues. Impact fund managers have done well for themselves, but often at the detriment of the original vision it was set up for. Now things are bound to improved, thanks to researchers developing better methods to track the business intelligence related to such investments. If it succeeds, a greater pie of the total investments would trickle down to social initiatives, as driven by the customers themselves. This will involve a wider range of industry players as well. In order for this kind of an economy to fully take root, some key developments would need to take place. Public policies need to be created that will provide incentives. A broad commitment needs to be reinforced involving fund managers, social entrepreneurs and the intermediaries. Finally, an industry body too must be created to look in to it.

Source:https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/private-equity-and-principal-investors/our-insights/catalyzing-the-growth-of-the-impact-economy

Uploaded Date:08 June 2019