• Remote work will become a new normal

The talk about remote work has been there for years, and the number of organizations using this approach has been growing significantly. However, this year’s coronavirus pandemic has only served as a catalyst leading to a steep increase never seen before. According to a report by Stanford University, in the US alone, more than 42% of the workforce work from home. As we start a new year, expect a permanent move towards online and remote work as companies seek new, safer, flexible, and cheaper means of working. Many companies have now figured out how companies can be run successfully by this new arrangement, and there is also an availability of various remote working platforms.

• Unemployment will be high

Although some people will be lucky enough to work from home, some have lost employment due to the damages of the pandemic. This trend comes as no surprise considering the number of companies that have closed or scaled-down operations as demand nosedived. By September, the US' unemployment rate was above 7.9%, almost double what it was in the past two years. Although things might change at the beginning of the year, many companies have closed down, and unemployment will be a long term problem.

• Mobile marketing will be widely used

Mobile marketing has become one of the notable trends for small businesses. As mobile devices become adopted more than ever, companies will target mobile device users in their promotional activities. This means that small businesses will increase their marketing towards mobile user audiences by reaching them via tablets, smartphones, and other mobile platforms. It is estimated that more than five billion people own mobile devices on the planet. Most of these devices are used to access different sites, including social media platforms, and are now used for shopping, getting information, and communicating.  

• Virtualization of education

As businesses and work shift to online platforms, education space will also change in the same direction. We have already seen educational institutions using Zoom, Google Classroom, among other platforms, to ensure learning goes on uninterrupted and at a lower cost. Despite the pandemic slowing down, virtual learning is never going away any time soon. Expect more virtual learning platforms, homeschooling, and learning pods to emerge and possibly reduce the number of students attending brick-and-mortar classrooms.

• The world will move towards cashless

As virtualization of almost every aspect goes on, the economy will also increasingly go cashless. There is already a heated competition among different players in this area, with big players such as Google Pay, Apple Pay, and PayPal going after each other to offer businesses a way of paying for products without using traditional payment approaches. New entrants such as Facebook are coming up with WhatsApp Pay to challenge the big boys' dominance in this area. Across Europe, Asia, and even in Africa, the same is happening. With e-commerce now growing significantly, expect more people to use cashless payment options increasingly. While we may not go entirely cashless this decade, 2021 will be a defining moment considering that we are still learning from the lessons offered by the coronavirus pandemic.