Upper-level management and executives will need to take the role of governance, risk and compliance teams very seriously during this time and in the months ahead, says legal and business information and analytics service multinational LexisNexis South Africa legal and compliance divisional director Greg Brown.

Information technology connectivity, cybersecurity risks, business continuity management strategies and mitigating the effects of remote working, the loss of income and job losses will require risk managers to not only guide their organisations through the current Covid-19-related lockdown, but also work to predict future scenarios and what the new normal could look like, he says.

Economies have been fundamentally disrupted and what was previously considered essential – including ratings agencies, consumption and the value of industries –  is now less important, says risk strategist Dr Dana Gampel, who participated in a virtual risk think tank coordinated by the Institute of Risk Management South Africa and sponsored by LexisNexis South Africa.

“We need to ask what parts of business, in light of the changes and opportunities, do you have to protect? And how risk competitive are you actually? Adaptation and diversification are now fundamental," she stresses.

The new normal will include micro and shared economies. Community and smaller supply chains will pop-up, requiring deregulation, as communities, rather than big business or big government, will define them. Regional supply chains across Africa will also open up and the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement will be of benefit to these.

"We will see increasing customer adaptiveness and business will need to see customers as partners and not just payers.”

Gampel says the new normal will result in increased efficiencies, but may also result in increased reliance on the State, which could drive a further economic crash. The new normal will also give rise to a cashless economy, with more people working and schooling from home.

There will be a need for new tools and platforms – for learning, recruitment and talent management, which will extend to the development of new policies to manage employee key performance indicators, unemployment insurance funds, culture and wellness, as well as management style and performance, Consultancy firm Eunomix CEO Claude Baissac says.

Business executives are now reliant on Internet technologies to network with customers, suppliers and employees on local soil, as well as overseas. The freedom and ability to travel internationally has disappeared overnight, and while it is not business as normal, business for many industries is still going ahead and businesses have had to adapt or die.

“We cannot just think of this pandemic, our lockdown and the way life has had to change, as a short-term disruption before we all go back to normal. Where before management said working from home was not possible and it would not work, they have now been forced to accept the situation and are seeing that in fact, employees can manage many of their day-to-day tasks remotely," says consultancy multinational Tomorrow Today Global future trends specialist Graeme Codrington.

Some experts feel that global society will not be able to go back to what pre-globalisation looked like, but the experts agree that the current status quo of regular international travel, face-to-face meetings and people-dense open plan offices will change, says Brown.