What are the biggest implications for Asian corporations in light of COVID-19?
Two things really two big things are true. The first one is—this is huge. It’s as though an asteroid has hit our economy and it’s not just an economic phenomenon, because it’s a health phenomenon and it’s a behavioral phenomenon. It’s also going to drive massive behavior changes and I think there’s going to be a great reshuffling of industries and corporations. It’s going to be a time of finding fundamentally new equilibriums. We’re going to come out of the COVID-19 tunnel and we’re going to be in a new world.
But there’s another thing that’s true as well, and that is it’s enormously uncertain. And even when we think we’re on top of it, there’s going to be lots of false dawns. There’s going to be new uncertainties replacing old ones. So we crush those two truths into each other. This is a monumental impact on our economies and our societies and a moment of high uncertainty. So what do we do about it? Well, we’ve got to plan ahead not with uncertainty as an afterthought but with uncertainty at the very center of our response. That means having scenarios having holding true multiple versions of the world and having strategies that are robust across multiple scenarios. Not trying to back winners or make point forecasts, but to actually create strategies that are contingent responses for multiple potential worlds and then get dynamic. It’s not about being right about being the fastest to learn and the quickest to adapt.
