The “Next Normal” – McKinsey Trends for 2021

What will 2021 bring? Let’s get some outside air from McKinsey, which has some predictions grounded in data and 2020 trends. Here are two insights from their report on the “next normal.”

Insight 1: A boom in new businesses could be good news for the months to come.

Twenty-twenty was a big year for starting new businesses. “In the third quarter of 2020 alone, there were more than 1.5 million new-business applications in the United States—almost double the figure for the same period in 2019,” states the report. So while the pandemic was hard on small businesses, “the positive trend in entrepreneurship could bode well for job growth and economic activity once recovery takes hold.”

Insight 2: The pandemic-driven digital shift holds promise for productivity

COVID-19 greatly accelerated digitization for companies. While McKinsey says the impact on long-term productivity won’t be clear for some time, early data is promising. “US productivity in the third quarter of 2020 rose 4.6 percent, following a 10.6 percent increase in the second quarter, which is the largest six-month improvement since 1965,” states the report.

What do you think? What trends do you predict in 2021?