White Paper: The Future of Retail and Hospitality

Life has certainly changed. For everyone. 

The purpose of this white paper is to help leaders reflect as they develop long-term strategies and new goals post the COVID-19 crisis. It covers a wide array of topics because the world we live in is complex and requires us to think through an array of moving parts.

This document is a collective work of individuals (based on conversations with my industry peers and friends) who are interested in the future and have above-average capabilities to envision it. The bullet points are not statements but rather suggestions on how the themes may evolve. Readers should grab what sparks their imagination. The focus is not on the exit of the crisis, rather, it is on long-term changes, 2021 and beyond.

There are five main categories: Exemplary Leadership, Society Morphogenesis, Economy, Remote Work and a Readiness Plan for the Long Term.

Exemplary Leadership

• Great leaders typically go through crises and handle them well. This is the kind of leadership that the reader should aim for. A few examples: George Washington and the American Revolution, Abraham Lincoln and the end of slavery, Roosevelt or Winston Churchill and WW2, Napoleon and the French revolution.
• The landscape after the crisis will be different in some fields and not so much in others. Think about the dot-com crisis and how it transitioned the internet from a hedge fund investment opportunity pre-crisis to a new way of life post-crisis.
• Crisis creates opportunities. Leaders seize them.

Society Morphogenesis

• Black swan event theory:
  • Definition: black swan events are unexpected events of large magnitude and consequences and their dominant role in history that may lead to hindsight analysis.
  • Some radical social life changes happen as a consequence of black swan events.
  • For example, 9/11 was a black swan event. After 9/11, airplane security has been a long-lasting behavior change.
  • To make a long-lasting habit, it needs 21 days to take effect. We are obviously past that duration in the COVID-19 crisis.
  • See in the Restaurant section, the concept of “New Deal.” 
• World War III: the pandemic can in some aspects be compared to the Third World War by the number of countries impacted, the casualties and the impact on society. Even if it were before man’s time, think about the meteoric impact that made the dinosaurs disappear.
• On the topic of duration and still on the theme of war, think about how many wars were supposed to be a quick in-and-out and how long they actually lasted. How long will the exit of the COVID-19 last or how long the transition into the new way of life will take?
• Big Brother is watching:
  • Play of technology, aggregation of data, payment, biometric scanning.
  • More traceability of individuals; face recognition, biometry. Legislation will have to change, though.
• Idealistic society — a lot of discussions on social media about:
  • A better world, more social, more human, more caring.
  • Consciousness that what we have can change on a turn of a dime. This time is a virus, tomorrow could be global warming or the impact of plastics.
  • Less pollution with less human industrial activities.
  • New purpose of society.
  • More local sourcing in harmony with nature.
  • These are values that millennials have been trying to push and for which we may have a breakthrough. This is an accelerator opportunity.
  • Global warming, pollution activists such as Greta Thunberg may be heard more and influence government decisions, some out of necessity . . . some opportunistically.
  • However, there are conflicting goals. For example, in order to better protect ourselves, we use more plastics and chemicals.
• Social distancing: How long it will stay? It may phase out as we are social animals.
• Global world:
  • There are ideological fights between the global economy supporters and populist leaders who propose stronger borders. The global spread of the virus may legitimate leaders pushing for stronger borders.
  • Working together on a global scale can help resolve global problems such as accelerating the speed of finding a vaccine.
  • The internet was born in Geneva to facilitate communication between physicians from around the world who were using every five years the one and only tool available in the world (synchrotron). The need of global collaboration and staying in touch fostered one the greatest inventions of the century.
• Universal income. Giving people money in exchange of staying at home may be perceived as a step towards universal income.
• Debt ratio. Total debt to GDBP ratio of 1 to 1 currently will evolve to a 1.2 to 1 ratio in many developed countries. Could it be an overburden on the society that will slow down growth? The French revolution took its roots in the enormous debt generated by one of the greatest Kings of France, Louis the XIV, that did not get addressed by the two following kings and ended up in a near bankruptcy of the state and subsequently the revolution.
• Who will pay for the additional expenses that all societies are incurring?

Economy

• Election Year. The current Republican Administration has built a platform focusing on lowering regulation and creating a positive economy. It will be interesting to see how the results of the election play out. Any uncertainty is challenging to the economy and the results of the election may take the economy into different directions (and COVID-19 further complicates the uncertainty of a normal election year).
• Economy recovery. Deep recession in Q2 and Q3 is expected. Bill Gates thinks that it will take a couple of years for the economy to recover. Similar to a train slowing down and trying to reaccelerate, it takes time.
• Same cycles. The same cycle reproduces itself over and over: economy repairs itself, grows, then goes into that euphoria period when everyone wants to be part of it even though it is known that trees do not reach the sky. Then something breaks the economy and the cycle starts again. 1990 with the gulf war, 2000 with the dot-com bubble, 2001 with September 11th, 2008 with the financial crisis, 2020 with the coronavirus. If there is one lesson to learn here, it is to be cash strong and low leveraged when the economy starts to be too good to be true and not push the envelope trying to rake in every penny.
• Likely a couple of years after the end of the crisis, the economy will double down and start again as mentioned in the previous bullet point.
• If at the end of the COVID-19 the conclusion is that it will be a recurring threat, or a similar pandemic may surge, it could lead families to increase savings, push low makers to have better protections against unemployment and a health system not financed by employers.
• Unemployment. The society may struggle to resorb unemployment. Historically, the USA has always had one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world. Some countries have been functioning for decades with unemployment rates close to 10%. It may shape a different society.
• Severe impact on non-essential products or services in a weaker economy.

Workspace

• Remote work – the new norm?
  • More mainstream and productive. It will go through the usual phases: forming, storming, norming, growing. After the excitement of “you can work from home,” the realization of the challenges of working from home emerges. Next step is/will be the implementation of productive organization, discipline that will lead to an effective, enjoyable way to work from home. Some companies are already very far into work from home. For example, the Coca-Cola headquarters, which boasts flex time and flex space, but no dedicated office.
  • Risks. High-paid individuals may see a financial impact when their capabilities are priced on the global market, and the same job can be performed for a fraction of the price in a lower labor cost country.
  • The house of the future may have a room that can be used as a study/office during the day.
  • Need for social space where people can meet during the day.
  • Alternatively, co-working spaces in the neighborhood.
  • Likely future will include balance between office, remote work and some kind of coworking space.
  • Rush hour and traffic saturation is an exponential phenomenon. The few additional cars create an important impact and slow down the traffic. Without these cars, can we dream about a more fluid traffic even during rush hours?
• Retail:
  • Some will see retail consumption go gangbuster (fear of missing out, similar to post WWI and WWII consumption, instant gratification), some think that people are going to save more in order to better weather the next crisis. In particular the millennials that have already been hit hard in their work life by the 2008 and 2020 recessions.
  • Acceleration of cashless solutions.
  • Brick and mortar:
    • Accelerate brick and mortar store closure and size reduction.
    • Shorter lease in retail, similar to residential?
• Restaurants:
  • Creature-of-habit concept: capture through off-premise sales, new long-term customers that your brand would not have had in the first place. The 1933 Roosevelt New Deal intended to start fresh. Will all the competing brands be again on the same starting line; the leaders of yesterday may become followers and new leaders may emerge?
  • Technology will continue to grow as important in the business to the point that CMOs will have to be very technology savvy or emergence of CIOs becoming Chief Guest Officers.
  • There are topics where America has been more conservative than the rest of the world. Payment is a good example, with the archaic back and forth for the payment slip through the server. Pay at the table has been mainstream since the 1990s, touchless payment mid 2010 in many countries. These touchless payments will be accelerated.
  • The super obvious:
    • Off-premise consumption will continue to grow.
    • Increase of drive-through, pick up areas.
  • Will spending allocation to restaurants change?
  • Will check averages increase (or decrease)?
  • Where will people congregate during the day?
  • Tables spacing increased. Same in sports venues.
  • New business with hub and spokes: one central 5,000 sq. ft. and small 1,500 sq. ft. in the suburbs.
  • Franchise sales may have a window of opportunity: assuming identical sales and lower real estate/construction costs, it should help the issue of the sales to investment ratio. 2010 period has shown that the window of opportunity is narrow and franchise development must be ready.
  • Opportunity for hydroponic farms to make a breakthrough with the perception of a better controlled environment.
• Hygiene considerations:
  • The restaurant space will be permanently influenced by pandemic precautions going forward. Redefining cleanliness, sanitizing high traffic guest contact areas, gloves and possibly face masks in production roles. This is very common in Japan today which "screams" food safety and quality by the way. Marketers will promote cleanliness messages through design and branding and convey the message to the subconsciousness of guests.
  • More touchless products, with built-in anti-bacterial surfaces.
  • Will this virus have the same impact in our life as AIDS had (e.g., condoms, medical consequences, etc.)?
• 3D printing: here is a technology that has been wavering: from prototype to nerdy to tentative mainstream but never burst. The fast prototyping of many medical devices may finally boost this technology.
• Recommendation to surf the business cycle:
  • This is the only paragraph where I will make a suggestion based on past experience. I suggest the following cycle: Post crisis, invest quickly and grow your business through debt leverage. Reimburse the debt and accumulate cash in the later portion of the cycle. Close to the next recession, resist the temptation to invest. To the contrary, divest some of the underperforming equity; there will be buyers. And start again.

Readiness Plan for the Long-Term

• Exit of the crisis:
  • Duration of the crisis: length of time before the lights come back on is material to the net effect and or change on the current norm. People want it to be the way it was . . . but the reality is they are already adopting and or accepting changes on processes and or access . . . some of which will most certainly stick going forward.
  • Will there be a brutal exit or rather a long transition? The goal of this paper is not to study the transition phase. However, the longer the transition, the more transformational changes there will be.
• How to prepare yourself and your organization:
  • There is a rule that great leaders are never surprised.
  • The world got surprised by the pandemic.
  • As leaders, we must prepare for 2021 and beyond (so post crisis exit), because this is not a surprise.
  • Have multiple strategies well thought out and ready to execute as some of the assumptions above become clearer.
  • One of the tools used by professional organizations is the landscape scenario planning.
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Your turn to make a contribution. Which pendulum/avalanche is going to swing faster than what anybody expects and is currently on nobody’s radar? Which industry is the next “Blockbuster” or Victoria Secret?

My hope is that this gets your brain thinking about potential outcomes and wins. My other hope is that you will contribute your thoughts below.