There are historical events that manage to shake humanity and produce real paradigm shifts. It happened several millennia ago with the advent of agriculture, which transformed the way humans interacted and was the fundamental step for the creation of societies based on a specific site with more or less complex organizational structures. Randall Castillo Ortega is an expert in international business and explains how businesses can better equip themselves going forward after seeing what the COVID-19 pandemic can do to the commercial industry.
Long ago, the Industrial Revolution in England meant a drastic change in the way production capacity was understood, greatly destabilizing the status quo, but achieving remarkable technological advances that in the medium and long term raised people’s quality of life and boosted development in several countries. In addition, recent decades have been the scene of the fascinating boom in technological-digital evolution; our generation is witnessing one of the most impressive changes of an era that the human race has ever experienced. Since the advent of the Internet, the development of the digital world has been exponential. Following Moore’s famous Law, telecommunications technology has been sophisticated at an unusual rate, virtually doubling its capacity every 18 months.
Today we have smartphones, social networks that allow us to be permanently connected and digital applications of great utility for different purposes: the future has reached us. In the midst of this age of change that we travel through and that we are not yet able to size by lacking the perspective that can only give the passing of time, both organizations and individuals are in the process of fully assuming, hand in hand with commitment and the vision of the future, the challenges that contemporary history puts on our shoulders.
It’s true that societies evolve, as times change. In turn, business organizations, with such indispensable skill for their survival, adapt to the new paradigms that emerge. The way you do business also fits the needs that manifest in your environment. The challenge is to achieve real evolution and not fall into the dreaded involution, that is, the setback caused by the repetition of vices apparently overcome in the past. “The current public health crisis as a result of COVID-19 has exposed the urgency of substantial changes in the way we see the world,” says Castillo. “In the first instance, it has made us revalue solidarity. In the face of a global health and economic crisis, it is essential that there be collaborative work based on trust and generosity.”
Companies have had to adapt to difficult circumstances to continue their operations. Many companies have avoided making cuts to their staff, as well as keeping an eye on employee needs. The cooperation that has prevailed between the private sector and the public sector to overcome adversity in the best possible way is undeniable. Prioritization became indispensable, and human sense and interest in the common good have become present. Asserts Castillo, “In the same order of ideas, different organizations are taking the critical situation as an opportunity to rethink concepts as elementary as that of corporate social responsibility, no longer as an accessory, but as a pillar on which organizational action is sustained.”
Indeed, a market continues to gain ground with customers and consumers who are increasingly concerned with issues such as sustainability, respect for labor rights and business ethics. Corporations must understand that corporate social responsibility requires a commitment that is reflected in the time spent and resources oriented. Perhaps the crisis stands for new considerations around this key point; social responsibility requires being the essence of organizations and not a mere facade.
Finally, the rush to find solutions to continue professional work, in the face of the need to take social isolation measures to prevent the proliferation of the epidemic, has made us resort more regularly to technological platforms and digital tools. Now more than ever, we are aware of the scopes of these applications and will surely learn to take advantage of them much better in the day-to-day. We may even be able to optimize technology and finally enter the long-awaited Industrial Revolution 4.0.
This painful crisis has made entrepreneurs learn valuable lessons and force us to be more resilient to adversity. ”It will be up to us to glimpse a better tomorrow and work hard, from the organizational world, on the purpose of establishing a professional environment of best practice and of full social and humanitarian sense,” concludes Castillo.