From A.D. to A.C.: Why Investors and Disruptive Companies Will Embrace Remote Work

by Igor Izotov

4 min read

Not many people nowadays will know that in the year 525 A.D., in the sloppy mountains of Constance, the term "anno Domini nostri Jesu Christi," or A.D., was coined.

Similarly to what happened then, in 2020 A.D, a new term will be coined from the ashes of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It will be no surprise that years from now, people may start separating time "Before COVID" (B.C.), and "After COVID" (A.C.).

So, in the following paragraphs, I will try to define the new "OK" in the A.C. world when it comes to investing and disruptive innovation.

The Workplace Will Become More Human-Less

In the A.C. world, a massive behavioral change will take place.

Workplace digitalization that used to be common in some Asian countries, mostly Japan and South Korea, will become a new normal for all industries across all countries in the world. 

Online communication tools such as Zoom and Google Meet will become our new conference/meeting rooms. At the same time, productivity tools such as Slack, Trello, and Jira will become our new managers. 

The workplace will become more human-less, but as remote working starts growing exponentially in functionalities, a significant change will kick-in.

And what a change that will be. 

empty offices after coronavirus

Remote Work Was Fully Embraced During the Lockdown

Although there is no definite primary data, except for two months of lockdown, the results are more than positive. 

Almost all service and IT-based companies around the globe fully embraced remote work.

A recent KPMG report reported that 64% of the U.S. workforce said their work quality has improved during the lockdown, as well as other key segments of their work life.

Moreover, their communication with their supervisors and team also improved.

Due to the time saved on commuting, there was a significant improvement in their work-life balance, a benefit many people crave nowadays. 

working from home

Investments in the New A.C. Age

Fast-forward a couple of months, and this new way of life starts influencing an investment cycle into tools that will make life in the A.C. age more comfortable. 

Besides splashing money into online communication tools such as Zoom, the social network of the A.C., I expect investors to splash money into at-home entertainment devices. Devices such as smart glasses, V.R., and A.R. gadgets that will make us feel socially connected again from the comfort of our home.

Demand for telemedicine and wireless monitoring systems for health will increase. Insurance companies will use these systems to track the conditions of the insurers—an untapped market until now. 

The demand for more data, more bandwidth, and everything and anything furniture-related will double, if not triple, as remote and at-home working will be the new normal. 

On the other hand, investors will be precautious when investing in companies whose teams aren’t remote. The big players on the market, such as Apple and Twitter, already switched to remote working. The smaller players who are still fighting remote work will soon disappear from the market. 

investments after the coronavirus

Last but Not Least

Whether A.C. will be better than A.D. depends on us, how we model it, and how we play our cards. 

Surely, there will be a recession followed by stagnation and inflation. But that's how the system reboots itself. 

Dionysius Exiguus, the monk who coined the term A.D., desired to replace the old way of calculating times, Diocletian years, with a calendar based on Christ's incarnation. According to the old calendar, people believed that the end of the world would come 500 years after the birth of Christ, or around 500 A.D.

Maybe COVID-19 was our end of time, and A.C. will be our start of a new, better time.

Igor Izotov
Igor Izotov
Founder at Izotov Consulting

Igor is an asymmetric thinker that wants to shape the future of business. He nurtures a special interest in the areas of commercialization and financing of innovation and helping innovators develop their ideas into feasible projects and business models.

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