COVID-19 and the rise of unparalleled opportunities for collaboration

Author: Inthida Ngeth

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and against the many predictions on how the world will return to a ‘new normal’, one thing is for sure: this global crisis has made every sector and business reconsider their status quo: questioning what to do now, next, and after.

For many businesses, in the immediate term, managing rapid response measures, survival and liquidity have been their core focus. As the impacts of this crisis continue to be felt all around, socially and economically, we can suspect that many of the changes and behaviours adapted during this time will persist and shape a new set of parameters and rules to play by during the recovery period and beyond.

Every aspect of how a company markets, attracts clients, delivers and produces goods and services, is certainly being re-evaluated through a new lens of heightened awareness around health and safety, new social norms and increased digital expectations.

Innovation and speeding up digital acceleration and transformation of various processes will undoubtedly be part of any company’s agenda as they assess their viability, weak links, and re-imagine strategic new ways of adapting their business to be resilient and thrive in the new landscape.

As leaders endeavour to adapt and manage through this uncharted territory, two key questions are undoubtedly raised: Who can help us with x, y, z? How can we help/ serve/ support others with what we have?

These simple questions have led to an incredible, inspiring and unprecedented increase in collaboration and cooperation – amongst individuals, entrepreneurs, start-ups, big businesses, corporations and governments – all coming together locally, nationally and globally to help each other and find solutions. This includes anything from helping those most vulnerable in the community, to economic funds and stimulus help, and finding new diagnostics and vaccines.

While the pandemic has closed down our physical borders, it has brought the collective community closer and created a watershed moment for exponential cooperation. Unlike anything in recent memory, we are experiencing an impressive rise of new alliances and partnerships, across a broad spectrum of diverse players and ecosystems, working together to contribute towards common goals – and in turn, creating more value and benefit for everyone involved.

During this short period, united by urgency, we have witnessed a breakdown of barriers amongst various groups and an extraordinary collaboration amongst industries, including the scientific, health care, and tech industries. We are seeing rapid development and technological advances at a rate we have never seen before. Already, through the convergence of this broad cooperation, we now have more than 40 vaccines going into clinical trials across the world. This didn’t even look plausible only a few weeks ago. Never before have we seen so many parties and experts contribute towards a single cause with so much focus and urgency.

With many stakeholders inextricably linked for mutual benefits, our capacity to pull and share resources, data, technology, talent and creativity has been unleashed to new powerful levels at a scale we only dreamed of before. What used to take years can now take weeks. We can expect that many more breakthroughs and technological advances will follow with expedited speeds to solve other problems, should we choose to continue on this path of uplifting collaboration.

In fact, this crisis has opened up new doors and frontiers to fuel a range of partnership possibilities that offer many fundamental shifts and phenomenal opportunities for growth for our society. The forthcoming ‘disruptive’ abundance of alliances and cooperation will be game changing and set the stage for a breeding environment of exciting new ideas, applied innovations, revolutionary business models and start-ups.

As the saying goes, “a crisis should never be wasted”. Our deep and shared common desire to emerge from this better and stronger than we were before, with farther potential, has certainly led to a greater awareness and openness towards a range of new synergies for collaborative efforts. For many leaders, now is a great time to reflect and consider what role they would like to play and explore empowering new possibilities for joint alliances, partnerships and relationships that can take them further.