Has the health crisis accelerated the transformation of companies?
Laurent Faibis: Crises are forced brainstorming sessions for the companies. They act as huge accelerators for economic, financial, and management innovations. Faced with this unprecedented situation, companies have had to quickly alter their behaviours, adapt their services, and raise financing in order to survive. Their whole value chain has been impacted: supply, logistics, organisation, product and service development, marketing, sales, and distribution. In Xerfi’s case, for instance, many of our sectoral projects became obsolete overnight. We had to be immediately creative, implement surveys to replace the national statistical tool that was completely out of commission, and reinvent our products. At the same time, we had to reorganise our commercial activities: locate our customers who were working from home, develop new communication tools. The companies that overcame this crisis are those that reinvented themselves quickly, notably through remote working. The disruption was huge, but we were pleasantly surprised by the adaptability of our colleagues.
What impact had this crisis on people’s relation to work and social interactions?
L.F.: With the implementation of remote working, social interactions within the company have evolved further during the last 18 months, than during the last 18 years! For managers, the first step was getting used to working remotely. This is easier for procedural professions, as long as you have the necessary ITequipment. The second step was learning how to work during a pandemic. We are currently transitioning towards a hybrid work model, combining both in-person and remote working. This leads to the working space being reorganised within the company. However, this reorganising does not mean that surface area is saved up, due to fewer employees being in-house at the same time. When employees are in-person at the company, they need real interactions, the importance of informal conversations and coffee breaks is increased a hundredfold. So, it is essential to create convivial spaces and situations. And managers must generate enthusiasm and a real dynamism within their teams, so that ideas turn into actions supported by the group – a thing that is hard to do with videoconference, which is no substitute for direct interactions. So, managers must be able to innovate in order to maintain the company’s dynamism, fight against boredom, isolation, and spin-out risks. And corporate culture, skills, information sharing, and formation must evolve too. And you must keep up motivation!
And what about commercial relationships?
L.F.: The progress of digitalisation makes a lot of things easier, but with commercial relationships it is also essential to keep direct and convivial interactions. With remote meetings, we lose what is expressed by non-verbal communication and in-person complicity. True, remotely e-signing a contract saves a precious amount of time, but what about the tradition of celebrating around a bottle of champagne the result of several months of negotiation? Soon, we will need to find ways of compensating this.
Similarly, even with the growth of online shopping, stores are not destined to disappear. Rather, I think that roles are being redefined. Stores must become unrivalled places of interaction. More and more, they will become warm spaces, for the pleasure of purchasing and being advised. They will no longer be used to store products – products will be stored elsewhere, and customers will have their orders delivered directly at home within the day. In fact, some people are suggesting transforming underground parking lots within large cities into commercial warehouses. We need to go back to the etymological and literary meaning of the word commerce: meaning communication, exchange of thoughts, good company, and friendly interactions.
The corporate and commercial world cannot let human relations unravel. Of course, the digital world is unavoidable, vital. But nothing can replace human relations. Technologies will become more common, and humans – with their creativity, intelligence, relational qualities – will take centre stage again. Artificial intelligence is… artificial. It acts only as a prosthetics for women and men.