The New Digital Landscape Digital Smarts – A Post Covid Necessity for Leaders
Abstract
The Covid-19 crisis has seen the emergence of a digital divergence. Online businesses are on the quick ascendance, while bricks and mortar businesses are moving in the opposite direction, on a fast decline. 2020’s global pandemic (which continues unabated into 2021) has turbocharged pre-existing trends away from bricks and mortar retail towards e-commerce and online platforms. Footwear giant Nike does not anticipate any reversion by consumers to the pre-pandemic ways of consumption and is betting that footfall at its physical stores will never fully recover, prompting it to focus energies and resources on online sales instead. This pivot to the online space is already evident in China: From January to April 2021, China’s online retail sales reached 3,763.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 27.6% and an average growth of 13.9% in two years.