I predicted many times future global threats from new pandemics

I have warned for over two decades about significant threats to manufacturing, logistics and supply chains from new mutant viruses which appear roughly once a year, usually emerging in Southern China (for reasons unclear), just one of many potential Wild Cards that could strike down successful global manufacturing business.  For example, when the SARS outbreak began to threaten our world in 2003, my media warnings about the threats from new mutant viruses reached an audience of over 300 million.

Business strategies for a post-coronavirus world. As a physician by first training and a Futurist advisor / keynote speaker on industry trends and strategy to over 400 of the world's largest 2000 companies, with a proven track record of longer term forecasting over the last 25+ years, here are some guiding principles to business life beyond Coronavirus / COVID-19. Global Crisis will accelerate pre-existing business trends Most mega trends described in my books, including The Future of Almost Everything, will continue to shape the world as before, but the Coronavirus pandemic will bring forward the timings of many key events in many industries. Examples:

Airlines will consolidate more rapidly in Europe because of COVID-19, following US picture over the last decade.  Larger airlines will be most likely to be rescued by government.  Borderline-non-viable airlines will be allowed to fold. Physical retail will lose out even more to online shoppers, with big jump in online sales which will only partially reverse after the pandemic has ended.  Many Shopping Malls will struggle to re-open in developed nations. Even faster growth of virtual working and virtual teams. Faster introduction of virtual learning into college education, MBAs, Business Schools and High Schools etc.

Here is more on Coronavirus / COVID-19 impact on business strategies for travel, transport, retail, leisure spending, entertainment, manufacturing, logistics and supply chains, banking, payments, health care, pharma research, energy and green tech etc.

I warned repeatedly over the last 22 years in several books, at large numbers of corporate events and in many global media broadcasts, about global threats from new mutant viruses, which we see emerging somewhere in the world once every 12 months on average.  

As I often say to corporations: the world can change faster than you can hold a board meeting (and I don't just mean threats from viral pandemics).  The days of depending on only one Strategy are over.  Every company needs Plan B, C, D and E as well, and to be AGILE in leadership, able to respond very rapidly to major events in our hyper-connected world.

12th February 2020

Repeated warnings about mutant flu / new viruses like SARS-CoV-2 - wider long term picture

At a time of panic in some communities, here is a common sense view. I am writing as a physician and trends analyst who has been involved in the fight against HIV (another mutant virus) for over three decades. Since 1987 I have been predicting the great vulnerability of our world to new mutant viruses or mutations of existing ones, in my book The Truth about AIDS, in Futurewise published in 1998, and in The Future of Almost Everything published in 2015/2019...