Despite the internet being in existence since the nineties, it took the pandemic to bring some of the more entrenched professions, such as those working in the law and healthcare, to finally discard the last vestiges of stubbornness and embrace digital technology – with astounding results.
In the truest sense of the word, many of these businesses have gone from working only with people from the local area to massively expanding their potential customer base to a national and even international scale.
The end of the bricks and mortar storefront?
For example, high streets the length and breadth of the UK have changed irreversibly due to having to close their doors during lockdown. Businesses had a stark choice – either pivot and embrace e-commerce, or risk going bust.
Those that are still trading today are the businesses that decided to embrace the digital world. If you look at the 2020 retail figures, 17532 stores closed down in 2020, and retailers cut almost 177,000 jobs. Social media and platforms such as Shopify and Amazon offered a simple, low-cost ‘over ready’ entry into e-commerce. Shops that previously relied on footfall from their local audience, suddenly found that they could sell their products to anyone based anywhere in the country.
Taking the stuffiness out of legal-speak
The legal world is another area that quickly adapted to the online world. For centuries solicitor firms have been the bastion of the local high street, inviting clients into book-lined offices with creaking staircases and squeaking leather chairs. For decades, if you wanted a will writing service in Bristol, you would research the companies local to your home and make your decision based on their physical proximity.
The pandemic completely disrupted traditional legal processes. Unable to hold face-to-face meetings and attend physical court hearings, everything moved online into the virtual realm, for not just face-to-face client meetings, but to attend court proceedings, and make depositions.
Online document creation and management and access to information and resources have also improved considerably. Whereas previously, there was a staunch adherence to maintaining hard copies and not accepting electronic signatures, the technology has changed to make the electronic exchange of information legally compliant.
Taking schools online
E-learning was not a new concept, with many private colleges running virtual classes all over the world. However, taking traditional schools online was a massive exercise in behavioural psychology as well as a social experiment that unfortunately affected the achievements of a generation of children.
Since the world has returned to normal, communities across the world have been reaping the consequences of keeping schools closed for so long. Everything, from the overall quality and structure of exam systems and marking protocols to the initial development of speaking and language use among toddlers who were unable to socialize has demonstrated the damaging effects of closing down entire societies.
Health and Fitness
During a time when maintaining good physical health and fitness was paramount in the bid to stay
strong and well, closing gyms seemed counterintuitive. However, entrepreneurial trainers embraced the virtual Zoom culture by holding sessions online whereby they could work out alongside their clients.No one could forget the regular ‘PE with Joe’ – when every weekday morning, celebrity personal trainer Joe Wicks held free live exercise classes through YouTube (often in different costumes) for the whole family to do together before the daily onslaught of kids doing their home lessons, alongside their parents who were working from home. As a result of his efforts, Joe Wicks was able to raise over £1.5 million for Children in Need.