New trends, technology and what is still to come

 

The Pandemic accelerated technological advances and their application in business. For those who did not fall asleep during the hibernation of the seven months of forced confinement in Panama, technology was essential for some businesses to have some income to survive.

This meant a fundamental change in the way of doing business, from how to serve customers to satisfy their needs, the company's operating process, the number of employees, the application of technologies, the constant search for savings, and the constant adaptation to the changes caused by a virus of which we still have much to know (even though we have advanced a lot).

The government was not far behind, and there are many examples that I hope the government will maintain and continue improving many more processes and increase even after the pandemic. The truth is that the AIG (Authority for Government Innovation) has developed good projects, including an award-winning one in Latin America.

The DGI practically automated all its most common procedures, they should already be close to 98%, and they should take it to 100% as soon as possible. Even now, payments can be made in all possible ways, without having to go to any bank to do so to use the electronic options that they give us. I remind you that by automating any government agency, we are providing a better service to taxpayers, and they do not fall into the hands of any official or quasi-official or processor who is going to charge them for their free service.

The Panama Solidary Program, which includes food bags, physical vouchers, and electronic vouchers even when their amounts are small, has served to bring some comfort to employees who lost their jobs either permanently or due to a contract suspension. Here it has been possible to help wage earners, more than anything since without a "census" of the informal and unemployed it is extremely difficult to help them. Data from different government entities had to be unified to determine whether someone who opted for the bond was working or not, but let's say it has worked relatively well.

But the jewel in the crown was to "load" the voucher to the identity card of eligible citizens so that with it, they could go to supermarkets to use their solidarity voucher. This has been an example not only for the region but for the world, especially in times of pandemic and thus avoid long lines of people (even so, there were sectors that were given physical bonds or that had to pick up a bag between crowds), even though we know that all adults must have an ID in Panama.

The government, despite having passed the Telecommuting Law has not been able to use (or did not want to use it) this method for public employees. I hope that after the pandemic this will be one of the AIG's priority tasks to improve the budgets of the entities so that they need less space and spend much less on public utilities.

Private companies, with fewer resources, have had to be more resourceful and efficient in handling the pandemic. First, the restaurants began by biting the bullet so that the Chefs/owners had to take care of the kitchen and the orders, either through their website, an Instagram/Facebook account, a telephone, WhatsApp, and a delivery platform. With a reduced menu to start with, no employees, and working long hours to try to raise as much income as possible.

Between this low-income environment and the cut in fixed expenses - rents, public services, salaries (suspended contracts), and others, they were able to survive, not only the pandemic but also the same competition that little by little was entering the same wave (demand was reduced due to more unemployment in the country).

The stores began to do their job when they saw that the solution to their sales was delivery. And it is that delivery is the main problem in a country where the mail does not work (and has never worked), and the most efficient in delivery, let's say that the "Chavale Freight Services", but the service is not door to door but in offices of the "Chavale" himself. It works best for you to order anything from Amazon and it arrives in a week or less at your door.

The first thing was to reform their websites to include all the inventory they had so that the client could ask for what they needed. As there was no time, the websites have not been transformed efficiently, and orders had to be combined with WhatsApp to make it faster. We found that delivery was not the only problem they were going to face, but rather being able to pick the order. And this was the biggest problem to be able to send the order to the customer. It was taking a long time, and the customer didn't like this problem.

Supermarkets suffered the same, which are more difficult, due to the number of SKUs (products) in each store, which complicates the picking of products to send to their customers. A few had to withdraw from delivery, especially because pharmacies and S / Ms were essential businesses and did not close like the others. The same issue for pharmacies, but having fewer SKUs, their picking was somewhat easier, and they were more successful than supermarkets.

The educational centers also had to adapt to the new times, and it is that virtual education is here to stay. This issue has been one of the most controversial in the pandemic, due to the current trends in the education of children and young people, where one advocates face-to-face education and the other for virtual education to protect us from more contagions - especially between children and parents.

The subject of virtual education gives rise to much debate, but what is certain is the great difference between public and private schools in terms of virtual education, especially due to the lack of resources to have computers/laptops at home, as well as a suitable Wi-Fi connection for classes. The problem gets worse in the families where there is more than one student per house since as many computers are required as there are students for schoolwork, and we cannot forget about the students with special needs, especially if the parents do not have the resources to keep the tutor out of school.

Private companies have embraced teleworking, especially transnationals, keeping their entire staff working from home, using the company's proprietary software, making enormous technological efforts to maintain the security of the system, and making life easy for all its workers.

We all learned to work from home in some way or another, accepting it or not, but understanding that it is a way that both the company, the community, and the employees do not lose during hard times. This is going to be a trend that is here to stay, and that those who accept them will be able to enjoy many benefits of working at home, starting with the quality of life and flexibility, and learning to be responsible and practice accepting the delegation of work. It requires a lot of communication, but at the same time, it creates a new employee, an employee who is going to have to do his job with minimal "supervision" and producing daily results.

Another important trend has been taking place due to the lack of income. Many have turned to entrepreneurship as their way to get their income.  This has not happened in Panama before the pandemic.

And it is that the Panamanian is not an entrepreneur in essence. Very few parents were entrepreneurs and they cannot teach this to their children, in schools and universities we also do not teach boys to be entrepreneurs, and society - including government and banks - treat entrepreneurs like weirdos, and many times even as "Losers".

But the pandemic has a face of "hunger", and the pandemic has brought out the best face of Panamanian entrepreneurship, and many people have started new small businesses from home, taking advantage of their installed capacity at home for the operation, social networks for marketing and delivery platforms to get the products to your customers.

This new wave of entrepreneurs will continue if society accepts them, treats them well, lends them money, does not treat them as "Losers" (especially family members), and if the entrepreneurs become formal in some way. We do have to accept that the Entrepreneurship Law tries to do something for these new entrepreneurs, but there is still much to do, especially to lend them working capital.

Banks are also evaluating their model, as they realized that customers don't need a physical bank. Now, this also depends on the client, the older they are, the more used to the branches they are, the younger they are, the less they need the branch. Baby Boomers have to migrate to the internet 100%, and Gen X, Y, and Z are going to do everything via cell phone.

But this requires the bank to make changes to its processes, to lower bureaucracy, but to increase its customer service and automate its processes so that everything has its automatic Flow, without violating banking agreements. For the bank, not having to open branches is a huge saving in their budgets, not only in infrastructure but in the number of employees, however, if they must increase in customer service, it could use Teleworking as a way of operating.

The world is going to change radically. The changes that Netflix and Amazon made in the way they do business, and that in the long term have proven to be effective and have catapulted them to be the best in their industries, and where they have practically no or very little competition, to which they lead a huge advantage in the business world. This has allowed them to continue with their business facing the pandemic, and they have even increased their income by being prepared (unintentionally) for something like what happened in 2020. The vision of how to change the business model was spectacular and has catapulted into the world as role models.

In Panama, very few companies were prepared for the pandemic. But we have seen how they managed to change their models, sacrifice, and keep their business afloat. And they continue to face a crisis like the one we have right now. By reviewing your processes, using some imagination, thinking outside the box, cutting expenses / increasing income, you can achieve significant changes in companies, which put them ahead of the competition and the pandemic, and not following and giving tumbles.

The company that is not clear on what it has to change will not be able to face this crisis and survive. And not all changes involve technological changes, but they have to start with the desire to change. Then comes the analysis of everything that can change, and effectively do so, and you can never forget that the client is in the middle of all this and cannot be forgotten.