Caribbean Businesses need to adapt quickly and permanently

 I didn’t once mention Covid-19 … damn it… 🤦‍♂️

Don’t infect anyone. Stay indoors.

🎙Podcast version will publish tomorrow🎙

The crisis will affect the region more deeply and for longer than we realise

Like most of us, you may find you have more time on your hands than before… for all the wrong reasons. If you own or work in a Business that is not recognised as a necessity of the state —think, medical or food-related companies — you may find your Company is at a complete stand-still.

I’ve been witnessing plenty of posts on LinkedIn and email campaigns telling me they are practising Business continuity or offering free of charge help in getting you up and running for remote working. (You should take advantage now, as they’ll likely charge you a crap-ton of money soon for such services.) I’m assuming it is true and they’re all flawlessly executing their well-thought-out and well-tuned DR plans.

Putting my snark aside, I started thinking about the change that is currently forced upon businesses, and particularly those located in the Caribbean. Challenging times for any business, regardless of your location in the world.

For us here in the Caribbean, the effects are multiple and felt almost immediately. Take tourism; the numbers of cancellations or demands for reimbursement must be too frightening to look at. The knock-on effects of having no tourists affect local Businesses geared up to take tourists on day trips, eat in restaurants, buy souvenirs and countless other activities that are all revenue-generating. We know that direct and indirect revenue of global tourism was at 10.4% of global GDP in 2017, predicted to rise by 3.8% per annum over the coming years, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council in their Economic Impact 2018 report. In the Caribbean, 15.5% of total GDP in the region is attributed to tourism. 2.4 million jobs, i.e., 13.5% of the entire working population in the region, valued at 35.4 billion USD. This view is shared by an opinion piece published by CARICOM today.

Putting it in different terms, in tourism alone, around a 6th of the economy has suddenly disappeared. The effects are more wide-reaching than that too. Unlike many continents, ours is not contiguous. The closing of borders and the cancelling of flights has significant implications for not only passengers but freight. In the case of fresh fruit and vegetables that are not, or cannot be, grown locally, this put a strain on getting these supplies into local shops. Small is the number of islands in the region that can self-supply all the food necessary to feed their populations using local agriculture and food processing facilities.

What this all means, businesses in the Caribbean are going to need some severe rethink of their business models in the near future to both survive and rebound. In the near-term, developing products and services to deal with the immediate losses and then thinking through longer-term consequences and how best they can adapt to this new reality and to the long-term wants and needs of a population that wants change.

Forced change isn’t necessarily good

I’m guessing we can all agree that change is forced upon us currently. It might be the first time in your entire working career that you are working from home. You’re juggling work with home-schooling and sharing the space with your partner, both adjusting to the new norm as best you can. The regular routine is destabilised, and we are all in a state of uncertainty. I don’t know when we’re going to get through this, but I know it isn’t going to be next week. But this abrupt change in our personal lives translates to a sudden and deep change for Business too.

Here in the Caribbean, we have been used to traditional businesses that have had little incentive to change in the face of Digital Transformation. Captive audiences have enabled them to stagnate in their innovation and in their offerings to the public that comes back to buy regardless of price, availability and choice. I’m generalising, and of course, there are some innovative firms out there, but they are mostly confined to services and often have clientele throughout the region or the world.

I have been very frustrated over the last 16 years that the development of digital solutions has been severely behind the times of other countries. Sixteen years ago, I lived in the UK, and we had been ordering our groceries online and having them delivered to our flat five years before that. Yes, you read that right, over 20 years ago, supermarkets in the UK were providing online ordering and delivery to the door. You’re lucky in the French West Indies to have one pickup point, AND you’re required to drive to it yourself, IF you’re fortunate, you’ll get the time slot you want! Have they not heard of Jobs to be Done?

This is not the only industry that is decades behind. The result feeds the collective Cognitive Dissonance in the region, where we as educated and worldly exposed people (through social media and travelling) cannot understand why we don’t have access to the same things.

Let me be clear; no one is asking for 1-hour to-the-door Amazon Prime deliveries of your favourite artisan toothpaste, let’s leave that for the Hipsters in Brooklyn. However, is it beyond expectation to want able to order something online and have it delivered to your door in a day or two; computers, phones, food, tools, groceries, services…, the list is endless? I would prefer to read that as the opportunity is unlimited, but I can’t quite manage it right now 😢.

Many changes in life(1)

I wanted to highlight a couple of tweets and articles that show that changes are being made, and made very quickly indicating what might be in the post-pandemic world we are currently moving towards.

I enjoyed the tweet, the idea that a younger generation is taking it in their stride, compensating and coming up with simple, but effective ideas to continue. Dating is so essential for the world, and self-containment and confinement couldn’t be more damaging if it tried. But as witnessed above, we as humans seem to find a solution.

This next tweet is from Stewart Butterfield. Stewart is the CEO of Slack, a collaboration tool I’ve mentioned before. In a lengthy Twitter thread, he documented how his company went from a couple of million Daily Active Users (DAUs) to over 11 million in the space of a couple of weeks.

But this tweet identifies perfectly the shift Business is facing, independent to this pandemic. He estimates that the shift from email communication, which is that backbone of so many companies today, is moving to channel communications and that that has accelerated by possibly 18 months as a result of this pandemic. I would argue that it has accelerated change even faster than that.

Channel-type communication is so much better for teams, whether they are 2 meters away from you, or two continents. It's two-way, it’s subject filtered, it’s asynchronous and synchronous at the same time and most of all, is personable, unlike email —how many times have you written an email, forgot the smiley, and the recipient completely missed the point? 

The feedback loop of interaction is so much better, and it can help better articulate how people in the team feel about each others’ efforts and implication. All done seamlessly, easily, taking next to no time. In years past, managers and co-workers would need to draft and double-check an email to give feedback for the project you were working on together. If that feedback was personal, there were just too many risks associated with getting the tone wrong.

Other innovations are being fast-tracked with some surprising results. The uncanny valley that technology so often creates, is being redesigned at a breakneck pace. Things that were proposed over ten years ago that were rejected by the world for their insensitivity or downright weirdness at the time are readily accepted today in this climate of pandemics. My son had his first virtual class though Hangouts this morning. I’d been pressing the education system for years to innovate and use virtual learning, all to no avail. How life changes.

As another example, have a read of this article on onezero hosted on Medium, Coronavirus is spurring a new era of digital funerals. It will become more and more acceptable, not only from a health standpoint but as we continue to distance ourselves from our birth towns, looking for better opportunities and lifestyles, we will need these tools to help us reconnect back home when needed. From a personal point of view, I would have liked to have had this option a few years ago when my Grandmother passed away, and I was regrettably, unable to make the transatlantic journey back to the UK for the funeral for time and financial reasons. Or this article on Protocol, What it feels like to be laid off on Zoom during this crisis. Ouch! Will we look at this with the same distaste in the near future?

From a more local perspective, this crisis has shown us many things, things we honestly didn’t want to face.

Take the aforementioned disaster preparedness. The number of companies that I consulted for that reduced their disaster recovery budgets to peanuts because they didn’t see the value, left me feeling dismayed. Apparently, volcanoes, earthquakes and hurricanes are a non-issue. Go figure. 🤷‍♂️ But Coronavirus has called their bluff, and it’s not looking great for some.

Flexible working should have been the norm ten years ago. The tools existed back then, but they were rudimentary and only slowly developed. Why did it take so long? Because there was no demand, no incentive. Software companies had no audience to sell to. Companies with ancient attitudes wanted “bums on seats” rather than productive and collaborative workers because they didn’t trust them OoO (2). You must trust them now though! Slack and Teams would have arrived earlier if Businesses had been more grown-up about it.

I’ll leave you with one last thought. I wrote about Fortnite hosting a live mega-concert for Marshmellow, with something like 10.7 million concert-goers — not counting the countless Twitch streamers (estimated at a total of 27 million people all told). I wondered then, as I do now, how could this technology be used for more “serious business” purposes. I was a regular attendee of Microsoft Conferences over the last 13/14 years, conferences that attract up-to 25 000 attendees in one place I have a badge and a letter to prove it 🏅. So how could Microsoft replace these conferences with an entirely digital experience? One thought that comes to mind is precisely that blueprint trialled by Fornite.

Minecraft, Microsoft’s online virtual world game/education platform, brags over 90 million monthly active users. Its scale is enormous, more significant than anything we can create in the real-world, for cost, permit and land constraints. Estimates of between 1 and 10 million simultaneous users are suggested. Microsoft’s “virtual” conference could be opened up for many more attendees offering Microsoft further reach than is physically possible and more interaction with its up and coming partners, resellers and developers.

Attending a recent webcast about virtual conferences, the speaker — who happened to be the organiser of the Virtual Island Summit — mentioned that the mere fact that the summit was virtual, allowed participation from an Island so remote that only a 12-day boat trip to South Africa (one that happened once every three months) was possible.

The impossible, made possible because of Digital Transformation.

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1 A song by Barrington Levy

2 Out of Office

Covid-19 has forced us to reevaluate how we work. Confinement, social distancing and working from home are the three main topics of the day.

How are you coping? What strategies have you or your business put in place to get through this period? Will it permanently change how we work together?

Let’s discuss🎙 (French and English welcome)

There is only one topic at the moment, its effects are so wide-reaching that discussion about almost anything else will have some relation to the virus SARS-COV-2 which causes Covid-19. That’s why this week’s issue is not exclusively about Digital Transformation. Let me just start by saying, that the seriousness of this pandemic is not to be taken lightly. I’m not a scientist, nor an epidemiologist, so I have no comment on what is right or wrong

I had much trouble writing this article because the situation was changing almost immediately. After doing some research and obtaining figures, they were out of date almost immediately, which explains why I am light on detailed statistics. I thought the best path would be to look at this at a distance.

On to the issue.

The Future is Digital Newsletter is intended for anyone interested in Digital Technologies and how it affects their business. I strongly encourage you to forward it to people you feel may be interested. If this email was forwarded to you, I’d love to see you on board. You can sign up here:

Sign up now

Visit the website to read all the archives.

Thanks for being a supporter, have a great day.

Winners and losers, the mother of invention and virtual social distancing

There is only one topic at the moment, its effects are so wide-reaching that discussion about almost anything else will have some relation to the virus SARS-COV-2 which causes Covid-19. That’s why this week’s issue is not exclusively about Digital Transformation. Let me just start by saying, that the seriousness of this pandemic is not to be taken lightly. I’m not a scientist, nor an epidemiologist, so I have no comment on what is right or wrong

I had much trouble writing this article because the situation was changing almost immediately. After doing some research and obtaining figures, they were out of date almost immediately, which explains why I am light on detailed statistics. I thought the best path would be to look at this at a distance.

On to the issue.

PS. I’ll be recording the narrated version shortly. Hope to have it edited and published later today.

The Lockdown

Many governments around the world are currently implementing bans on large-scale gatherings or restricting the amounts of attendees severely. In France, and by extension throughout the French West Indies, severe restrictions have been placed on movement. Citizens are required to stay at home for a minimum of 14 days from yesterday’s announcement. We have to carry signed declarations for the reasons of movement at all times, with each trip requiring a new form. All sports events and competitions have been postponed/cancelled until further notice. A local international tennis competition has stopped all matches as of Friday 13th, a scenario we see replicated throughout the Caribbean.

In the wider Caribbean, we have seen the first cases of Covid-19, with Antigua, the Cayman Islands and Trinidad being the latest to reception the infections. The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) is going to be very busy over the coming months, and there are the roots of a concerted effort around the Caribbean to tackle this menace. Earlier Cricket West Indies suspended all cricket in the region for a minimum of 30 days 😢.

Sad reading also is this schedule of upcoming tech conferences around the world. Take a look at the forthcoming conferences being cancelled or postponed on the Techmeme events calendar as of this morning the 18/3/2020:

Interesting that many are switching on Virtual Conferences, possibly opening up participation to members of their respective communities that couldn’t otherwise attend. We’ve been saying this for years that virtual conferences would be the way to go in the future. Still, there is too much money to made from organising and hosting paying meat-bag attended conventions in a beautiful hotel resort. Last year, I attended the Virtual Island Summit and was impressed by the range of subjects and professional organisation. Incidentally, you should take a look at this year’s summit page to view last year’s content and stay in touch for this year’s agenda.

Finally, more lockdowns are coming, and they are progressively being implemented region by region. It is only a matter of time before you are directly affected.

Out of necessity…

Or, putting it better, necessity is the mother of invention.

There have been a few times in modern human history where this proverb is as pertinent as it is currently. Just looking at the previous section, it doesn’t take a genius to understand that further and more-restrictive lockdowns are coming. However, despite all of this, we here in the Caribbean have an enormous opportunity to deal with this pandemic better than virtually any other country in the world, with only the Chinese being the exception —but I’m not sure I want to live in a totalitarian state on balance. It is going to take a gargantuan effort from all nations, with differences being put aside for the benefit of everyone.

As island nations, there are already travel restrictions in place since before the modern era. You can’t get in and out easily or cheaply from major continents, much to our consternation when we do want to leave. Inter-island travel is a little easier, although not necessarily cheaper.

Although these are structural issues that contribute to our collective response, the real opportunity for us is the fact that we are several weeks behind the curve. If we look at infections over time from the start of this crisis, we see that the Caribbean being behind the times is an advantage. I’ve sketched it out below with very rough approximations.

Image: Matthew Cowen/The Future is Digital Newsletter

That extra time may help us develop effective measures, but only if we’re collectively willing to learn from others’ experiences. And, if we can do that for this crisis, we should strive to make it a habit in anything we do in the future as a region!

There are examples of this in the business world too. If you properly analyse Apple Inc., you’ll note that they are seldom the first to come out with any particular technology. What Apple does is observe the new tech and then improve upon it to the point that it solves many of the issues it had while out in “beta” test by other companies; touch screens, Bluetooth headphones, wireless speakers —I have a theory about this one btw, but that can wait for another day). Apple could not accurately be called an inventor.

Surprisingly, other services are becoming more innovative as a result of this situation. Therapy is about to go online in a big way, I believe. Traditionally the couch-laden office is the right environment for effective treatment. Being in neutral territory is a phycological trick that helps kick-start the brain into accepting treatment. But what are we to do in the event of a restriction in movement?

I estimate that the quantity of anxiety cases is about to rise substantially with fear of Covid-19 becoming stronger as further cases reported locally. Therapists, with minimal effort and investment, could open up their practices to online and virtual consultations through services like Skype, WhatsApp and Zoom for one-to-one video and online payment processing systems like Stripe and SumUp for billing. It’s no replacement of course, but it’s probably the best we can do in the circumstances.

Those who will lose out

It is not all opportunity, however, as I hinted at in the last issue, Defining Productivity and Collaboration:

But as always in these situations, there are winners and losers. Airlines, for example, are bracing for huge losses over the coming weeks and months.

As always, the digital world makes it both better and worse, all at the same time. Unscrupulous opportunists are lifting their heads from the rocks under which they crawled, to dupe already vulnerable people into giving up personal details. I mentioned the forms the French government have issued, they look like this:

If you can’t print — you’ve run out of ink, or you have no printer — you can fill one out on the fly with the authorities who will at some point stop and interrogate you. But that hasn’t stopped fraudulent attempts at phishing. This morning on a WhatsApp group I’m a member of for the Parents Association of my child’s school, one “helpful” parent sent a link to an online form that is supposed to help you fill out the form and present it in the case you can’t print. A quick look at the URL, .sh from Saint Helene a British Overseas territory and not from gouv.fr, it was apparent to me that it was fake. But not everyone understands or has the same critical thinking. Stay braced for many more scams and the consequences of those over the coming weeks and months. There’s a lot of scum out there on the Internet.

If I have one piece of advice for this period, it is, assume every email you receive is a fake until you can prove otherwise. Similarly, for social media posts that are forwarded from friends and on groups of which you are a member. Do not immediately circulate them (see above). 

Traditional businesses are going to have to face important questions about how they are going to cope with wide-scale bans on the movement of people. In the very first instance, that will directly impact on the number of workers that can come to work. Staff reductions are going to put pressure on not only productivity but also physiological stress on those that can work. A global slow-down will only limit that so much. The service industry, and particularly those like myself in consulting, are likely to be least affected as much of our work can be done remotely. Site visits can be kept to a strict minimum and optimised for maximum efficiency where necessary. Services such as hospitality, however, are going to feel the pain.

It’s refreshing and heart-warming to see so many IT businesses offering free services to help small businesses get up and running with Microsoft Teams or other platforms. But as I’ve said since I started this newsletter, digital tools are not the problem in Digital Transformation, culture is. Dropping Teams or Slack into a 30-year old business that has never had to think about how it can work remotely is going to nothing but make life difficult initially. Of course, you’ll tell me that it’s already tricky what have they got to lose, and you’d be right. 

This is possibly the most significant opportunity for all businesses to rethink about digitising not just their communications and meetings to stay safe and stay lawful in the event of curfews but to automate and optimise business processes that are both manual and repetitive. Teams and Slack are not going to do that all by themselves. Serious reflection over the coming weeks about how your business is structured and how it needs to change in this new world order. Taking an individual look at all the separate parts of your value chain as a starting point, assessing where you stand digitally is an excellent exercise to perform at this juncture.

Let’s be honest. You’re not going to be doing much business at the moment unless you are one of the vital parts of life-sustaining activities in your island or country. Taking this time to evaluate and plan for the future is a bitter-tasting gift that you should embrace.

Virtual social-distancing is easier than real social-distancing

Watching the movement around my local town here in Martinique, it would appear that many people have not entirely integrated just how serious this can be for others around them. Despite us seeing many instances of goodwill, charity and general humanity, both online and off, in places that are severely affected. For example, in Spain people have been playing apartment block bingo, group aerobic classes from their balconies and generally messing around on Tik Tok for fun. The #coronavirus hashtag currently has 12 billion views on Tok Tok alone! However, there are still too many instances of people who show complete disregard for others.

The situation in shops around the globe is saddening. Shocking to me, was the reaction of politicians and supporters when results were announced for the first round of local elections here in the FWI. Supporters and politicians were filmed shaking hands, hugging and kissing (as is the custom in regular times) and in some cases, this happened between reasonably large groups. One friend put it this way, ‘something to increase the rate of growth of the virus. 🤦‍♂️’

Stay safe, stay at home, seriously, Stay At Home and respect your local government’s advice.

We’ll talk soon.

The Future is Digital Newsletter is intended for anyone interested in Digital Technologies and how it affects their business. I strongly encourage you to forward it to people you feel may be interested. If this email was forwarded to you, I’d love to see you on board. You can sign up here:

Sign up now

Visit the website to read all previous articles.

Thanks for being a supporter, have a great day.

Good morning. I was trying to get up and running with the narrated version of this newsletter, and it took a little more time than expected which is why there was no issue last week. It is now available through Apple’s Podcast Library so you can subscribe directly through your podcast player of choice. That’s the good news.

The bad news (for me) was that I’d started this article quite some time ago, but recent events, namely the impact of COVID-19, have forced me to rewrite significant portions of it. So much for pre-planning!

The Future is Digital Newsletter is intended for anyone interested in Digital Technologies and how it affects their business. I strongly encourage you to forward it to people you feel may be interested. If this email was forwarded to you, I’d love to see you on board. You can sign up here:

Sign up now

Visit the website to read all my articles and continue the discussion in the Slack group.

Thanks for being a supporter, have a great day.