By the time you read this, it is well nigh nearly time to lock down 2020 and throw the key away. The year has been a classic one that disconnected many lives and livelihoods. Fear ruled and the pandemic robbed us of many things. Our way of life, our celebratory mindset and our unbridled freedom are just three things 2020 snatched from us.
The year ahead is one to look forward to. I have chosen five trends that will be a challenge to us after an already tough year gone by. Yes, one must always look forward with hope, but that hope must be one garnished with generous bites of reality in it. The five deadly trends for 2021 then.
1. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer: The world is getting cleaved once again.
The divide is widening and deepening. The poor get poorer as jobs vanish, increments evaporate and cheaper substitution becomes the norm in the workplace. Every business wants to achieve optimisation of its costs. The corporate sector will declare good and big profits this year, as it must. If this means that men must be replaced by machines, so be it. Automation is the way.
The demand for the traditional workforce would fizzle. The only blessed aberrations here are in the fields of work that are not yet close enough and open to automation in India.
Agriculture is one such. A big one. I’m afraid I can’t find too many else.
The rich get richer as money has a way of making more money. As the economy revives, money diligently, intelligently and fruitfully employed will generate good returns for those who have it.
And those who don’t make real money will make virtual money on the stock market through the hedge of the mutual fund. India, a traditionally fixed-deposit oriented nation, is going to get into the aggressive virtual money market with the stock markets being locales to thrive in. The rich and the great Indian middle class (with a risk appetite) will get richer. And no grudging this.
Importantly, the poor getting poorer is a deadly trend that shouldn’t be ignored. It has lessons for governments, banks, businesses and socially conscious citizens. Time to rearrange their priorities, products, services and, importantly, profits. The “next 6 billion” in a 7.8 billion population world is therefore more important than the number that is smaller. “Poor banking”, “poor funding”, “poor marketing”, “poor distribution”, and indeed a whole host of poor-led initiatives need to be in the pipeline of every vertical of business in 2021. Time to even cleave businesses into SBUs that are poor-focussed as opposed to the profit-focussed. If one eye is rich, the other needs to be poor.
2. Money seeks opportunity as opposed to opportunities that seek money: The world of investments is turning turtle. Money of every kind, whether foreign or Indian, is desperately wanting to find a suitable home. And there is a surfeit of money around. With global markets offering next to 0% interest rate regimes, this money is on an opportunity hunt. Wherever it finds one, it will go. This is a deadly trend as money will fly in and out at whim and will. Markets, regulations, businesses, margins and literally everything that act as a pacifier in money markets need to be sensitively re-leveraged for efficiency. A nation that believes in the FDI route to funnel this money in is certainly a more solid nation than one that gets excited about FII inflows.
3.The three kinds of jobs: Jobs in literally every space of work will get divided into three, which will have an impact on livelihoods. There is the permanent employee, the gig employee and the machine employee.
The least paid of them all in most industries is likely to be the permanent employee. The gig employee—who is the consultant, the advisor, the implementer and the temporarily outsourced entity—will flit from one work-spot to another. The hunger in the belly of this person is going to be something else.
The third type of employee is the machine one. As more and more physically-numbing and laborious pieces of work get done by machines, they will free people. The first free-fall of people will therefore result in tumult in the job market. A fair bit of relearning, upskilling, reskilling and cross-skilling will become the need of the moment in 2021. More than now. And more than ever.
4. Enter the home: A lot more will happen in a home. Apart from the obvious rest and rejuvenation; work, workout, entertainment, education and literally everything that can be done through a digital mode will come home. Expect this to cascade. This is a deadly trend as the dividing line between workspace and home space blurs. People-clashes within the space of the home will be the norm. Mental health needs to go on preventive care mode as opposed to a total curative care as it is now.
5. Back to the future: This is the deadliest trend of them all for 2021. In the early months of the pandemic, every right-thinking human being across the planet was jolted out of the taken-for-granted way of life. This was a comma moment, one to pause and think of the way we do things. The pace, the rampant greed, the lopsided priorities between man and nature, and lots more. And guess what, the deadly trend ahead is disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised. As the pandemic fades and a reliable vaccine enters the picture, all of us are going to get excited that man has done it again. Man has won!
And in celebration of this nice thought, all of us will forget all those armchair resolutions of ours to get more inclusive, more charitable, more green, more patient and less greedy. I am afraid there is going to be a revenge-return to the space of status quo ante on this count. And that is the deadliest trend of them all to watch.
harish bijoor (harishbijoor@hotmail.com)
Brand Guru & Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults