Untact Trend? Focus on the Deep Social Structures -2

Continuing from the first article...

Following up on the first article...

One client, who owns a global beverage brand, said "The news is the scariest thing these past few months." The news has been the most terrifying thing over the past few months.They explained.

The unexpected news of "confirmed cases" in a specific area prevents nearby stores from operating or discourages people from visiting due to fear and apprehension. Restaurant owners have continuously invested in their restaurant's structure, interior, and ordering and payment systems, linked to their signature dishes' culinary culture, based on the changing expectations and demands of customers visiting their stores over the years since opening.

They pondered what constitutes a good meal in their eyes and have maintained and developed an ecosystem with cooperating companies such as food suppliers, working closely together. This can be described as the integrated outcome of strategic choices in their respective businesses, connecting with the current state of their stores.

However, now the client and the owners of regional restaurants have completely lost balance in the system that they have gradually built up over time and are in a situation where they must simultaneously reconsider what the meaning and role of a restaurant should be, and how the strategic relationships and ecosystems connected to it should proceed financially.

Of course, it is easy to see that this level of change in the "steady state" extends to numerous other industrial sectors and aspects of society.

Sporting events are completely canceled or held without spectators, and university graduations are staged as bizarre drive-through events. Also, fashion, which had typically catered to small elite groups for a long time, has lost its influence now that social gatherings are diminished. It is unknown whether these elites can count on the same public social imitation as before, or if their previous level of influence can continue.

Therefore, one question arises for everyone.

Will these changes continue? Will things return to normal once the Corona crisis subsides?

A major social crisis can change the deep structure of society.

Answering the question above does not seem possible at present. No data can tell us how people will behave and react in the future. However, we can refer to and pay attention to the current trends related to people's revealed behaviors.

For example, there is the acceleration of work from home, online meetings, online education, and corporate investment in digital transformation connected to e-commerce, all expressed under the "untact" trend.

However, no one can guarantee how long these trends will last.Or we could ask consumers to tell us about their future emotional changes and consumption predictions, but it is a well-known fact that people are not good at understanding and expressing themselves. This is similar to how we can see the immediate disruption of overseas travel based on the current collapse of the airline industry, but it does not mean people will not fly again when overseas travel is possible.

If COVID-19 is indeed another example of a "steady state," people's behavioral changes could be reconstructed at a much more fundamental level. In social science, this is expressed as a "change in the deep structure of society."

The "steady state" here can be seen as a concept in which the components that bind the social system together (politics, economics, etc.) and the activity patterns of the internal members (in the case of humans, beliefs, values, norms, etc.) are constituted as a deeply structured socially negotiated framework. This deep structure is usually strong enough to resist or adapt to most external changes and threats. However, there are times when the existing structure collapses and a new deep structure evolves.

Human history has already shown that many major social crises, such as pandemics, have changed the deep structure of our society, creating the foundation for entirely new consumer demands, ideas, values, and behavioral changes.

The Black Death of the 14th century exposed the limits of the religious governance tool of "God's will," triggering the downfall of feudalism. World War I drew attention to the validity of women's social labor force due to the absence of men participating in the war, simultaneously opening up new possibilities. The 9/11 terrorist attacks also changed the way the global airline industry operated and its meaning within just a few years.

The best business opportunities in the post-COVID-19 world can be obtained by identifying how this crisis is gradually changing the "deep structure" of our society and understanding the context in which new needs, values, and behaviors experienced by people exist.

This can help companies not only rely on short-term responses based on the untact trend, but also establish long-term strategies for continuous growth. It clarifies the meaning and potential of current untact-related investments, and helps identify the priorities for products and services that empower the changing customer, who is spending more time at home working and living their daily lives.

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