During the pandemic:

• Amazon announced (3/16/20) that it is seeking to hire 100,000 people in its warehousing and delivery sectors. By comparison, UPS has a total of about 444,000 employees and FedEx has about 425,000 employees. Amazon, which is the source of many of the purchases that result in the shipping, is positioning itself to becomoe a dominant player in the logistics sector.

• Amazon announced that Amazon Care will go live for its Seattle-based employees (2/19/20). Patients will have access to tech-enabled healthcare. This happened about five months after the program was announced and comes on the heels of a partnership with Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan Chase which has as its goal the use of technology to revolutionize healthcare. Amazon is positioning itself to be a major player in the employee healthcare sector. 

• Prior to the pandemic (7/11/19), Amazon announced that it will spend $700 million to offer 100,000 workers access to training in information technologies in order for them to be prepared for the coming age of automation. This is offered as part of its Machine Learning University. With education in general driven online during the Covid-19 event, people are becoming accustomed to the concept. After the pandemic has passed, Amazon will be positioned to deliver a strong, less expensive, branded alternative to higher education. 

Amazon is a well-known serial innovator, and it is accelerating investment in some sectors during this disruption. This behavior is consistent with that of innovators in past crises. 

In their study, Economic Crisis and Innovation (2012), Daniele Archibugi and Andrea Filippetti analyzed the response of UK companies to the 2008 economic crisis. They found that ‘great innovators,’ which they defined as those delivering sales of new-to-market products and services, were disproportionate investors during the downturn. The study was analyzed 2485 UK firms, of which 324 (13%) were ‘great innovators.’ The share of innovation expenditures by the innovators, as a percentage of the total, increased from 21% in 2006 to 37% in 2008. The absolute investments of the innovators, on average, increased by 63%, while those of the other firms declined by 27%. The innovators doubled down on their advantage. 

What are the implications for companies today?

1. Target opportunity areas where needs are shifting and you can deliver distinctively new offerings
2. Continue to invest through the downturn (which may be prolonged)
3. Act now, while customers are receptive to change, not after the Coronavirus dust settles.

When you relocate from one residence to another, you are far more likely to change the brand of toothpaste that you use than at other times. The same is true of your cable TV provider, your laundry detergent, and where you buy household supplies or furniture. I learned this from Imagitas, a life event marketing company that targets advertisements to those who have recently moved. Its does this by including high value advertising with the USPS Change of Address mailings.

Why is this so effective? 

When there is a major disruption in your life (a life event), your mind becomes a little unlocked from its habits and assumptions. You are willing to try new things – even a new toothpaste. Other common life events include getting married and having a child.

We are now in the midst of a major, global, shared life event – a pandemic. People are unlocked from almost all of their old habits and buying patterns. They are trying new things out of necessity (like zoom meetings or door-to-door grocery deliveries) or just because they have the time and are open to it (like virtual cocktail hours or online courses). 

This willingness to try new things right now is also true in the B2B sector. Many manufacturing companies, for example, have been stalled in driving usage of their smart, connected products and remote diagnostic capabilities. Their customers just didn’t see sufficient value in them. But now customers are willing to try anything that might help to keep operations up and running while face-to-face support is restricted. Smart companies will use the time to both drive adoption and to learn from customers what they really value and what they are willing to pay for. 

This willingness of customers to try new things is one reason that now is a great time to innovate. Your customers are more open to trying things. Their attitudes and habits are not set in concrete. It might be easier to get acceptance and trial of a new idea – and also easier to collaborate with them to make your offering better.

But the time to do this is now!

How are your customers’ behaviors becoming unlocked? What might you do to take advantage of this?