Adapting to a new world - PwC on facing the challenges of the post-COVID-19 landscape
At PwC, we have been thinking about how to approach these issues holistically. In 2017, we identified a set of urgent, interdependent, and accelerating challenges confronting the world. We dubbed it the ADAPT framework — describing a world in which asymmetry, disruption, age, polarization, and trust were fundamentally changing the way millions of people live and work. It was clear before COVID-19 that the pressures arising from the ADAPT issues would forge a completely different world by 2025, and that organizations would have to reconfigure themselves to maintain their viability.
Accelerated by the pandemic, these changes may actually come about sooner than we thought (see "ADAPT + COVID-19").
In our forthcoming book, we predict that humanity has "10 years to midnight." Now, it seems there may be even less time to the fateful hour. Moreover, COVID-19 will not be the last such shock to the system. Unless we massively and quickly address the issues highlighted by ADAPT, and in a way that manages the crisis of today while preparing us for the future, the next shock will be much more damaging. That's the bad news. The good news?
At every unit of analysis and level of society, there is an opportunity to build a more sustainable and resilient future in which all people can thrive. By recognizing the challenges confronting the world, internalizing the lessons of the pandemic, and deploying the tools and technologies at hand, we can chart a new, more adaptive course.
