There is a palpable sense of anticipation building as pandemic restrictions ease, vaccination passports are discussed and travel-traffic light systems prepared. Like an impatient toddler unwillingly strapped into a car seat on a long tedious journey, the temptation to whine ‘are we are there yet’ is a hard one to dismiss. A sense of pent up energy suffuses Scott Galloway’s Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity. Written in September 2020 Post Corona is well-positioned to draw lessons from the pandemic to-date and to offer observations as to what may come next.
At the heart of Post Corona is Galloway’s assertion that the virus has acted as a super-charged accelerant across all social, political and economic trends, fast-forwarding them ahead by at least ten years. As Galloway pithily puts it ‘even if your firm isn’t there yet, consumer behaviour and the market now rests on the 2030 point on the trend line – positive or negative’. The U.S. ecommerce penetration figures presented by Galloway drive this point home. Having grown 1% per annum since 2000 ecommerce penetration jumped from 16% to 27% during the first eight weeks of the pandemic, a decade’s growth in two months. It’s possible that this trend will reverse, but the advantage clearly lies with those companies who have strong and engaging online presences.
As a tech’ entrepreneur and Professor of Marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Galloway presents an informed account as to how the Big Four (Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google) stand to solidify their market dominance in the post-Covid world. For those looking to emulate their success Galloway offers the T Algorithm, breaking down the key traits he feels most companies capable of a trillion-dollar valuation have. Some, such as ‘appealing to human instinct’ or ‘balancing growth and margins’ are already familiar. Others, like ‘vertical integration’ and ‘Benjamin Button products’ (products that get more, rather than less, valuable to users over time) are predominately online features that look set to become common place in the post-Covid world.
Galloway also offers useful techniques for identifying sectors that are ripe for disruption. His Disreputability Index, ‘a dramatic increase in price with no accompanying increase in value or innovation’ should be kept in the back pocket of every investor or start-up founder. Two sectors in particular, education and health, are identified as being ripe for disruption. While there is undoubtably still a need for in-person discussion and collaboration the rapid channel shift enforced by lockdown has demonstrated the potential for the digital delivery of tuition, particularly in higher education. Galloway foresees a world where universities act as online platforms for top international lecturers, dramatically increasing the scalability of and access to first rate education.
Similarly, radical plans are envisioned for health. Imagine a world where your health care (and health insurance) requirements are managed via Amazon Prime, with the site using its immense data resources to connect customers to the most appropriate physicians, with prescriptions delivered to the door. Perhaps most challenging is Galloway’s prediction that medics will deliver their services though a medical version of Amazon’s Marketplace, with a percentage of their revenues being paid to ‘Prime Health’.
The world mapped out in Post Corona is one that risks total dominance by the Big Four. Galloway concludes his book by considering how monopolies can be effectively challenged in a marketplace that rewards vertical integration and how governments can better support the creation of a new ‘commonwealth’ for their communities. Central to this is Galloway’s argument that consumers are inherently fast thinkers, with little appetite for contemplating the long-term implications of their actions. We need governments to do the ‘slow thinking’ and counterbalance the coercive law of competitive capitalism.
Post Corona is an energetic and engaging first draft of what may come next. Closer in tone to a long blog post than an academic business book its mix of insightful observations and provocative ideas are helpful in preparing the ground as we hopefully near the end of the critical phase of the pandemic and move into the post pandemic world.
