ThinkTWENTY20

Over recent years, predictive analytics has become an essential part of business management, especially in the era of big data. But now, the models being used have been blown by changing behaviours. People are working at home, ordering more take-out, using less cash and more electronic payments, shopping online – the list goes on. Predictive analytics depends on historical data. There’s really only one good answer; companies need to focus on rebuilding their data banks to reflect the new behaviours – a necessary but time-consuming activity.

One of the major implications of the pandemic has been the necessity for people to work away from the office at home or elsewhere. Many companies were not ready for this and in fact had avoided it out of fears for security and privacy. But now they have had to implement security for systems moving off premises. It includes people working at home and also people working on the move, using mobile devices, including phones and tablets.

We all know that Covid-19 isn’t going to go away until after a vaccine is developed. Medical researchers are working around the world to develop such a vaccine and other researchers are working hard to identify causes, contamination pathways, vulnerabilities of segments of the population, and a variety of other aspects of this unprecedented and catastrophic pandemic.