strategy+business

what lies ahead

A return to normal. The new normal. The next normal. That sound you hear is the machinery of strategy thinking cranking up to grapple with how we describe the task in front of us. None of the approaches is entirely satisfying. The past 12 months have taught us that what we regard as normal can be disrupted very quickly, and that we can, just as quickly, define new routines and ways of working. So what are those whose job is developing foresight to do? One approach is to confront the uncertainty inherent in our lives by identifying and addressing the massive challenges and opportunities that lie ahead of us. To that end, we’ve tapped some of the best minds in PwC’s global network to get us thinking. In this issue’s cover…

take on tomorrow

After a year like 2020, it’s tempting to throw up your hands, put your head down, and just focus on getting through the myriad difficulties of the day. But to survive for the long term, you have to lift your sights and try to see through the haze of uncertainty and threats. After all, the forces that are forging new realities for all businesses didn’t come to a halt because of COVID-19 — in many instances, in fact, they accelerated. So we issued a challenge to colleagues throughout the PwC network. Give us your best take on the biggest common dilemmas, challenges, and opportunities business leaders face. And tell us how we can take them on directly, with confidence and purpose. The result is our “Take on Tomorrow” series, which has…

humanity, innovation, and radical progress in the post-covid world

When mobs erupt, like the one that descended on the U.S. Capitol in early January, I’m reminded of the Hemingway character who said he went bankrupt “gradually, then suddenly.” It’s not easy to predict breaking points, the moment when a crowd becomes lethal, when a pandemic overwhelms a healthcare system, or when historical norms need significant change. The shock of a tipping point can help us reevaluate systemic challenges that have been steadily accumulating — in today’s case, for more than a decade. Economic disparities, social imbalances, digital divides, information asymmetries, and market failures all have been undermining long-held paradigms about progress. The COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated and accentuated these forces. I’ve written recently about information-, incentive-, and reporting-based solutions to our systemic challenges. Reappraising the underpinnings of our market systems, while…

can private equity save the world?

Asking any one industry to save the world is, admittedly, hyperbolic. But the fastgrowing private equity industry is, in many ways, uniquely positioned to use its strengths, market position, and capabilities to generate positive returns for society in specific areas as it generates returns for investors. In fact, the ways the industry creates value today are directly translatable to an environment in which we face an imperative to repair, rethink, and reconfigure. PE’s edge has always been to create value by driving transformation more quickly and deeply than other owners can. In the industry’s first decades, that meant swiftly reducing costs and repositioning assets. Today and tomorrow, that can mean turning its catalyzing power to decarbonization and sustainability — and to do so throughout large portfolios that cut across geographies…

a remarkable thing could happen as we return to work

When COVID-19 forced much of the world to quickly shut down offices, factories, schools, shops, and restaurants, and pushed hundreds of millions of people into remote, makeshift workspaces, no one knew how it would all turn out. Now we know a lot more — and a lot is quite positive. For millions of people, working from home is feasible, welcomed, and productive, even if many companies had to scramble to go digital. Sorting out the fine points will occupy companies throughout 2021, as they analyze the workforce data they’ve been collecting and put what they’ve learned into action. But there were negatives, too: The knock-on economic effects of COVID-19 were particularly rough for women, minorities, and low-skilled workers, not to mention emerging economies such as in Africa, where 70 percent of…

learning to love transparency

Transparency took on a whole new meaning last year as COVID-19 swept the globe. At the start of 2020, it would have been unthinkable in much of the world that individuals would opt-in to geographic location services that shared their whereabouts at all times. Yet here we are, with pop-up notifications on smartphone apps warning people when they have been close to someone who tested positive for the coronavirus. As we head into 2021, the transparency imperative stretches from individuals to institutions, with the crisis increasing pressure on companies to open up to stakeholders such as investors, suppliers, governments, customers, and employees. That pressure isn’t due to contact tracing, of course. Rather, it’s a function of how the pandemic has underscored the interconnectedness of global actors, exacerbated and exposed underlying economic…