Business Travel in the Post-Coroniticum

Another new experience: Last month, I attended my yearly performance review meeting – the first time over Skype. And while reflecting that not too long-ago people in many companies would have flown in for something like that from wherever they are located in the world, I watch also recruiters doing job interviews online, agencies giving pitches via video conference, buyers negotiating and closing over the air, and even consultants interacting with their clients using web-based collaboration platforms.

After we all have got more or less used to attending team meetings or regular one-on-ones from our makeshift home office by now, this certainly is a next level of tele-working. While for this kind of personal encounters, meeting face-to-face has at least in the overwhelming majority of cases always been considered indispensable, our involuntary real-life experience imposed by the coronavirus situation now proves to us that all this is possible in a reasonable manner without meeting in person.

So, what does this mean for the hopefully near future when coronavirus will have eased its grip on us? Will anyone want to turn back time and spend hours in a car, train or plane only to meet someone in person for one hour? Rather not. But this then obviously leads to pressing strategic questions regarding the future of business travel. As an airline or railway company: Will passenger numbers fully recover, or will they rather follow an L than a U or V? And as a car manufacturer: Will range as the unceasingly uttered main advantage of combustion engines over electric drivetrains still be so decisive for the purchasing decision? I am convinced that a good deal of the changes we are now forced to implement in our routines are here to stay …

 

First published on LinkedIn on 8. April 2020

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