When the coronavirus hit the world a year ago most observers made the wrong call. It was a temporary blip before things returned to normal,  it was going to be business as usual by September, then all over by Christmas.

Most businesses battened down the hatches to try to survive the few months until freedom day. But freedom day didn’t, and hasn’t, come. Nor is it coming soon

Others read the signals correctly. The pandemic was going to change things forever. Just like in the 20^th century when we described events has happening pre-war and post-war, so we will come to speak about pre-coronavirus and post-coronavirus. Not that this virus is going anywhere soon. Like ‘flu it’ll continue to mutate and be around for years to come. We just need to keep building better defences, which we will,  and gradually the new normal, to which we will adapt, will emerge.

Businesses that read the signals correctly adapted very quickly and have devised new business models and ways of doing things.

The retail sector offers a good example; many observers attribute the decline of the high street to coronavirus, but in reality all the virus did was hasten the inevitable. As Phil Hicks of Growth Lab has said for several years, the department store model has had its time. Those businesses that were reading the signs correctly were already adapting.

So when I read that Boohoo had bought Debenhams for £55m I wasn’t surprised. On the face of it this was a strange acquisition – an online fashion retailer buying a troubled department store. But Boohoo is only buying Debenhams intangible assets such as its brand, website and customer lists and isn’t taking on any of its stores, stock or staff. The Arcadia group’s portfolio will go the same way.

In their place, which is Boohoo’s vision, is a shift to a marketplace business model which allows third parties to sell to consumer without first having to sell to a retailer and where consumers can access a huge variety of brands through a single website. It is a lucrative business model and – by reducing intermediary costs – offers better value for consumers. A win-win.

Offline retailers will struggle to compete in much the same way as physical bookshops can never provide the same number of book titles as Amazon.

Now Boohoo was reading the signals long before the pandemic. Other businesses have had to adapt more quickly and are doing so. Too many are hoping it’s all a horrible dream from which they will wake up and the pre-coronavirus world will return.

Which group is your business in? And even if you are adapting to changing market circumstances are those changes radical and disruptive to the sector? Remember that straightening the deckchairs didn’t stop the Titanic from sinking.

Start by analysing your core competencies and the things that differentiate your business from your rivals. Take restaurants for example. Whilst many are closed and struggling to survive, a few have identified that their food offering is their competitive advantage and have developed a delivery model to meet demand. In most cases their profitability has improved as they have cut the cost of staffing, heating and lighting a traditional restaurant.

Remote working has been one of the extraordinary success stories to emerge from the pandemic’s need for lockdown, but too many businesses are looking forward to the time when lockdown ends and everyone piles back into offices and factories. It’s not going to happen.

By nature, we don’t like change. It makes us uncomfortable and nervous and so we resist it. Those businesses that have embraced it during the past 12 months, however, tell a different story.

The opportunities are huge, but you need to be reading the signals correctly.

Stay safe

Noel Guilford