The Post-2020 Future is “Hybrid”

2020 has been an inflection point across many aspects of human society. Healthcare, entertainment, retail, real estate (both residential and commercial), travel and hospitality, and so many others have all been upended by the global COVID-19 pandemic. As we take stock of the changes we’ve seen in the past year and look ahead to 2021 and beyond, a unifying theme starts to emerge. Across many sectors, the post-2020 future is “hybrid.”

 Hybrid business models

2020 was the year of eCommerce. Across all retail sectors, the ability to rapidly pivot to online sales was the biggest determinant of a company’s success and, in many cases, its very survival. Retailers with strong existing omnichannel capabilities won big. Even Instacart finally turned a profit in April. This hybrid brick-and-mortar / online omnichannel model will only expand as more consumers become comfortable buying more and more products online after having been forced to do so by COVID-19 restrictions.

Lest we forget, 2020 was also the year of record-breaking wildfires in the American West (and Australia), the most named storms in United States history, and unprecedented heat waves. As we become increasingly aware of and scared about the impacts of climate change, regulatory and voluntary choices will drive increased hybridization (metaphorical and literal) in sectors dependent on fossil fuels.

Energy companies are diversifying away from coal and oil to renewable power sources like wind and solar. Global oil major Exxon Mobil wrote down $20 billion in oil assets in November. BP is expanding its investment in renewables. In the United Kingdom, renewable energy overtook fossil fuels as the leading energy source in the past year. Japanese regulations may even push skeptical Toyota to invest in fully electric vehicles in addition to their current gas-powered and hybrid fleet.

As money flows into R&D efforts, expect hybrid business models and diversified portfolios to expand to other industry sectors. Boeing is developing a hybrid aircraft, for example.

 Hybrid spaces

As the name suggests, hybrid spaces perform multiple functions that were hitherto treated as separate. The rise of the “home office” is perhaps the most obvious example. According to a Bloomberg article from earlier this year, as many as 75% of new homes may have a dedicated office space, up from a pre-pandemic level of 15%.

The same trend is visible in retail, where stores are being retrofitted or redesigned to include mini-warehouses to allow for efficient handling of eCommerce fulfillment without impacting the in-store shopping experience.

Similarly, restaurants are creating dedicated spaces for preparing, packing, and handling larger volumes of pickup and delivery orders, separate from their dining areas, to reduce crowding and delays. Many chains, including Chipotle, Shake Shack, Starbucks, and Sweetgreen, are introducing or expanding drive-through options to allow for social distancing or to tap into the suburban migration trend.

Going forward we should expect to see many more hybrid spaces emerge across other industry sectors. Imagine, for example, hotels creating co-working spaces or even satellite offices for companies with distributed teams (itself a growing trend as more professionals opt for remote work).

 Hybrid communication

2020 is also the year that Zoom joined the likes of Xerox and Google in going from a proper noun to a verb. Everyone, it appears, is Zoom-ing these days. And this portends a hybrid virtual / in-person tele-everything future: tele-education, tele-medicine, tele-work. Eliminating or reducing the need for in-person interaction can vastly increase the reach of scarce and expensive services, connecting people across geographies and time zones more seamlessly.

Beyond such one-on-one or small group interactions, hybrid broadcast channels are revolutionizing the movie industry, music concerts, and performing arts. You can watch Hamilton on Disney+. Movies are being released to theaters and streaming services simultaneously. Concerts and stand-up comedy acts went virtual with a vengeance. Conferences, trade shows, and other large-scale events were canceled or forced to go virtual in 2020. Even the Supreme Court of the United States held oral arguments over a live-streamed audio conference line, becoming accessible to the public for the first time.

While poor substitutes for in-person experiences, one can easily imagine a future where more live events are simulcast to a global audience, increasing reach, engagement, and, yes, revenue. As technology improves, public awareness and acceptance builds, and capabilities become more sophisticated, we should expect and, indeed, demand that governments, companies, educational institutions, etc. adopt hybrid communications to expand access, increase engagement, and promote transparency for their constituents.

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The post-2020 hybrid future appears bright, but we will need to continue to innovate aggressively, fix inequities in access to the technologies that underpin much of this future, and head off potential monopolies before they become a real problem. Let’s get to work. Happy 2021!