Fjord Trends 2020 COVID-19 Presentation

Copyright © 2020 Accenture.
Introduction
Every year, we crowdsource trends for the year ahead from our network of
1,200 people in 33 studios worldwide.
With new studios opening in Japan and across Latin America, Fjord Trends 2020
are our most globally diverse. Yet, despite the diversity of regional flavors and
context, there was a high level of consensus in our initial idea-gathering stage.
These are also our most closely connected trends ever, telling a comprehensive
story about our landscape and what’s coming next.
As we launched in December 2019, none of us could have foreseen the
pandemic we are now finding ourselves in and the changes we are
experiencing. These events have made our 2020 trends more relevant than
we envisaged.

COVID-19 edition
COVID-19 has turned into a global crisis, evolving at unprecedented speed
and scale. It is creating a universal imperative for governments and
organizations to take immediate action to protect their people.
This is no ordinary economic downturn: fundamental changes in customer
behavior, supply chains, and routes to market are knocking companies off
balance. We know that some of these shifts are temporary, while others will
have a lasting impact – we just don't know which will be which. But we do know
that some things will never be the same.
We have some clear guidelines for what you can do right now
to outmaneuver uncertainty and emerge stronger.

Realigning the
fundamentals
2020’s meta trend is nothing short of a major
realignment of the fundamentals. It’s tempting to
misinterpret this as a gloomy picture–instead, we think
this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to innovate in
business models, services and products around new
definitions of value.
However it plays out from here, one thing is likely:
those who embrace the long-term view–by starting with
their impact on the world and society, and the systemic
complexity of the world–will emerge as winners.

Many faces of growth
Money changers
Walking barcodes
Liquid people
Designing intelligence
Digital doubles
Life-centered design

Corporate transformation will soon switch focus
from digital to purpose, in response to people’s
demand for success metrics that enhance our
lives alongside financial growth.

What’s going on
• Organizations – and individuals – are being
judged on their response to COVID-19,
something that will far outlast the virus itself.
• Brands and companies are shifting their efforts
and focus, fast. That focus has moved to fill
gaps in key medical supplies, for example, face
masks and hand sanitizers.
• The number of jobless globally is rapidly
increasing as the virus spreads and more
countries enforce national shutdowns.
• Purpose will be very important as we emerge
from the pandemic. However, organizations’
balance sheets will override a lot of other
considerations for a good while.

People power
“It’s time for a new capitalism—a more
fair, equal and sustainable capitalism
that actually works for everyone, and
where businesses don’t just take from
society, but truly give back and have a
positive impact.”
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce

Growth, requalified
Numerous high-profile IPOs stuttered–Uber, WeWork and
Peloton, for example.
Meanwhile, New Zealand unveiled its first “well-being
budget” in May 2019: a new economic goal to make the
country both a great place to make a living and to make
a life.

What’s next
• A re-examination of long-held beliefs,
stemming from changing societal values,
concerns about finite natural resources, and
economic and political instability.
• Innovation in meaning and metrics. New
definitions might include personal growth,
such as learning, happiness, communal
longevity or good health. Economic models will
evolve and organizations will need to upskill
staff at all levels.
• For organizations, the challenge will lie in
resolving the tension between finding more
purposeful business objectives without
losing sight of the fact that profit is essential
for longevity.

Think Say Do
Fjordsuggests
How will you define new types of
value you can deliver while making
the profit required to thrive?
How has your response to COVID-
19 shifted your purpose or enabled
it to change?
How will Customer Experience and
Employee Experience work
together to create that value at the
points of creation and delivery?
Ask your employees what sort of
growth they’d like to see in the
organization. Get the debate
going.
What you measure counts. Start
to embed new metrics (alongside
financial growth) to drive
behaviors.
Collaborate with the willing to
make change happen at an
eco-system level, as effective
change is easier to sign up to if
many join the game.
How are you set up for different
value to be rewarded? How do
you motivate people?
Reimagine how you define and measure growth for different
stakeholders.

Our experience of what money is and what
it can do is changing, opening the door for
a host of pioneering products and services
as money carries other information with it,
and represents multiple forms of value.

What’s going on
• People have become more conscious of when
they’re “exposed”, forced or opting to stay at home
or avoiding touching anything when they go
outside.
• As cash became recognized as a carrier of bacteria
and people’s liberty to go to stores was curbed,
those who could went online and – almost overnight
– many countries became almost cashless societies.
In the UK, cash usage halved within days as stores
closed.
• Money management and debt management will
become critical for some people for years to come.
• As money goes digital, governments are looking to
digital currencies. For example, U.S. shared
proposals to create a digital dollar as part of a
massive COVID-induced stimulus bill.
NEW IMAGE

“We face an inevitable world of instant,
invisible and free payments, which spells
trouble for banks that don’t want to be
relegated to the plumbing of payments.”
Gareth Wilson, Head of Accenture’s Global Payments team
According to CBS News,
only 13 percent of
Swedes could remember
using cash for a recent
purchase.

New mental model
New digital currencies signal that we will no longer
think in nation-issued currencies but in terms of
sending value.

What’s next
• Our mental model of money as something physical
will be replaced by money as traceable,
programmable file transfers.
• New payment experiences will be used as a point of
differentiation and disruption.
• As it becomes easier for companies to play a
financial role in their customers’ lives, trust will be
key and it will have to be built through quality of
experience, while robustly addressing concerns
about privacy, transparency and integrity.
• Smart devices can already learn to identify their
users for authentication with minimal effort. Next,
we’ll see a significant rise in the use of “biometric
mobile wallets”–payment by fingerprint, facial or
retina recognition.

Think Say Do
Fjordsuggests
If your service were a part of
money transactions, what would it
look like? For example, if every
payment carried information
about you or your customers,
what would that be? How useful
could you make it?
How will the changing landscape
of money affect your business and
customers?
Communicate why people can
have confidence in your
organization. Highlight your
customers' trust as an asset you
can extend to new financial
offerings.
Move to where people are going
to manage money and build on
services they already use (i.e.
technology like SMS or services
like neobanks).
Follow these closely and look for
new product opportunities around
people’s money goals.
Reimagine transaction and payment as a source of innovation
and competitive advantage.

Interfaces are dissolving, and we’re
finding new ways for technology to
identify both us and features of our
behavior. 5G’s impact will extend beyond
faster data connection to enable new
physical experiences, made possible by
facial and body language recognition.

What’s going on
• Disease control is at the forefront of people’s
mind as the pandemic takes hold globally.
• Many governments are using people’s phones
to monitor their movements, deploying apps
and systems to keep tabs on those known to
have been close to anyone testing positive for
the virus and movement generally. Examples
include:
• Singapore is doing exhaustive contact
tracing, publishing detailed data on each
case.
• Israel plans to use cell phone location data
to trace people who’ve been in touch with
known carriers – technology otherwise
used by its intelligence services to track
terrorists.

Privacy vs benefits
Facebook AI Research has now even created the
first “de-identification” program for video to make
people invisible to facial identification software.
Babylon's AI assesses patient reaction to help
gauge whether they fully understand advice.

Body as a signature
UK’s Gatwick airport confirmed that it will
permanently use facial recognition for
pre-flight ID checks.

What’s next
• The Internet of Bodies will be added to the
Internet of Things.
• Living Services will move from the digital world
into the physical one. We will start designing
for dissolving interfaces, 5G-enabled space
personalization and machine-to-machine
communication.
• Designers will need to learn from the data
mistakes made in digital, and ensure that the
invisible data transaction is an exchange that
offers people tangible value.
• Organizations will need to understand how to
design opt-out in the real world, how to
ethically shape people’s behaviors, and any
associated concerns and constraints.

Think Say Do
Fjordsuggests
Which of your services could be
unlocked by biometrics? What could
you do with facial recognition or
understanding body language to
reduce friction for people?
Then look at the human experience of
these services: Who do they most
convenience? How do people
consent?
Health issues have rocketed to the top
of most people’s agenda. Touch is an
interaction issue: what parts of your
experience should/could go
touchless?
Advocate for data minimalism and
educate your customers about data
consent and privacy–the
consequences of data breach in
biometrics are much more severe.
Make the invisible visible so people
understand when a scan,
transaction or consent has taken
place.
Ensure that people can be the
curators of their own personalized
experiences–build a platform for
people to express, discover, and
receive what they want.
Reimagine new services for dissolving interfaces, enabled by 5G.

What does it mean in 2020 to be a "consumer" or
an "employee"?
We increasingly need to support individual
customers’ and employees’ changeable desires
and pursuit of greater meaning in their lives.

What’s going on
• Behavior change is happening at a scale and
speed never seen before. e.g. frequent
handwashing, working from home, and bad
behavior such as toilet paper hoarding.
• The pandemic is prompting us all to rethink
many areas of our lives: our priorities, how we
define ourselves, and what is actually
important to us.
• Home is considered our safe space, as people’s
attitude to risk is changing.
• As COVID-19 tends to be most serious in the
elderly and those with health conditions,
there’s a renewed focus on the need to see
them as people first and “high risk” second.

Consumption “shaming”
“Flygskam” is a new Swedish term for “flight shaming”
has resulted in an 8 percent fall in airport passengers and
2 million extra train journeys.

A conscious flexitarian
diet is becoming the
new norm.
95 percent of people
buying Impossible
Burgers are meat-eaters.
Choices:
Easier to find.
Easier to make.

What’s next
• It’s unclear which markets this trend will most
affect and when, but personal purpose-seeking is
on the rise. Expect COVID-19 to accelerate this
(once we move back up Maslow’s hierarchy).
• Expect to hear more about ethical anxiety
as we navigate trade-offs between competing
ethical demands and our own wants and desires.
• This is not a generational shift. A preference for
products, services and work with personal purpose
will be just as likely from people in their sixties and
seventies as by teens or the middle-aged. This is a
rapidly growing market opportunity.
• We will need to link customer and employee
experience much more closely than ever before.

Think Say Do
Fjordsuggests
How does your brand enable
people to define themselves
beyond what they consume, the
work they do or the income they
earn?
Check how customer preferences
are expected to change as a result
of COVID-19.
How does your business think
about people beyond the boxes of
"customer" or "employee"?
Strike the word "consumer" from
your vocabulary.
Provide people with choices that
allow them to flex and explore
their identity.
Help people navigate anxiety
around ethical choices.
Set up Human Insights teams
instead of Consumer Insights–
focus less on the number of
people that are taking specific
actions, and more on the context
that surrounds their decision-
making.
Reimagine your offering for the era of conscious consumerism.

The next step for Artificial Intelligence is
a generation of systems that blend it with
human intelligence to unlock the full
potential of people and machines
working together.

What’s going on
• Cutting-edge AI research companies are using
deep learning to find new information about
the structure of proteins associated with
COVID-19, which could provide crucial clues to
the scientists developing a vaccine.
• AI now exists which – when combined with the
assistance of human experts – can not only
predict the start of an epidemic, but also
forecast how it will spread.
• An AI system that uses cameras equipped with
computer vision and infrared sensors to
measure people’s temperatures in public areas
is already in use in one of Beijing’s railway
stations.

Everyday AI
1. AI ranges from the uses we’re aware
of to the completely hidden.
2. Attitudes reveal a tension: 80
percent of businesses are
implementing AI.
3. 82 percent of Americans think it
needs to be managed carefully.

From automation
to value creation
“The truth is that business has become too complex
and is moving too rapidly for boards and CEOs to
make good decisions without intelligent systems.”
MIT Sloan researchers
AlphaStar’s ability to
solve problems with
incomplete information
is a big step toward
making AI applicable to
real business challenges.

What’s next
• Organizations will need new, systematic
approaches for unlocking the full potential of
human collaboration with AI.
• Through our work with Accenture’s Dock, we’ve
identified three key areas:
• Enhancing the Human Experience by
extending our perceptual capabilities.
• Empowering People in Complex Systems of
global organizations.
• Envisioning New Products and Services
through simulation and decision making
support.
• AI and people view the world very differently, and
if we harness AI for innovation, we could generate
ideas we’d never dream of ourselves. It’s not a
race against machines, but with machines.

Think Say Do
Fjordsuggests
How can you make AI part of your
strategic decision-making process
rather than just automation of
individual tasks?
Where in your processes does
human input add more value, and
where is AI better suited for the
job? What human qualities will
you intentionally design into your
AI colleague?
How will you effectively manage
the interface and handover
between humans and machine?
Talk about AI in simple terms
according to what it can do–see,
hear, recommend–rather than
technical descriptions, like
"computer vision".
Trust AI data to help you in your
decision-making and mock-up
your AI first before heavily
investing in it–barriers to entry for
AI prototypes has dropped
dramatically, thanks to online
platforms.
Reimagine how to design AI for the human intelligence around
it to step to the next level of value creation.

Brands will need to learn how to interact with our
digital doubles–virtual home for all our data, and
gatekeepers of our digital lives. So will we.

What’s going on
• Around 1/3 of the global population is in
shutdown as of early April, inspiring people to
do more online than they’ve done before.
• Those less comfortable with digital technology
are learning about it and are, slowly, finding it
less daunting.
• With medical resources being strained, people
more willingly seek ways to get the attention
they need by plugging into digital health
services.
• As the world embraces online even more,
people might become less resistant to the
concept of digital doubles.

Digital twins
3D and data models of
physical objects that
can self-optimize over a
product or system’s
lifecycle. Now, they’re
getting personal.
“Anything you can really think of that a
human can do digitally, you can replace with
an avatar.”
Christine Marzano, co-founder of DNABlock
“Half of large industrial companies will use
digital twin technologies by 2021.”
Gartner, 2019

Instead of amorphous clouds, we will store all
our data in digital doubles – and nurture it to
expand its capability, Tamagotchi style.
Emergent areas already are Life Sciences and
Agentive Services.
Data portability
The Data Transfer
Project is the first step
toward housing all of a
person’s data in
one place.

What’s next
• By looking like us, digital doubles could rewrite
the data ownership model. By doing all the work with
companies and serving back to the user the best
solutions for them, they begin to become the
gatekeepers of our digital lives.
• The critical consideration for every person will be: who
do I trust to host my digital double?
• A critical consideration for organizations will be: how
can we design and build trust and safety into our
offering to give people the confidence to choose us as
their host?
• Any digital double experience must be engaging,
transparent and easy to access. Interface and
interactions must match the user's mental model–and
be simple and clear. Visualization will be a central
challenge.

Think Say Do
Fjordsuggests
What category of interactions
could be opened up by digital
doubles?
Shape your strategy with digital
doubles around three use cases:
• Delegating tasks for you.
• Masquerading your presence.
• Modeling your behavior or
future.
Make it clear to people that they
have control of their data–not
you–and demonstrate that your
platform can be trusted to win
customers and employees.
Ensure data reliability, but make
sure you're not overly reliant on
the data–always include the "lived
reality".
Avoid falling into the gamification
trap but do play and experiment,
as this is a new realm with
properties which are as yet
undetermined.
Reimagine the representation of people.

If it's true that organizations are working to
define new forms of growth and that people
are moving away from defining themselves
simply by the items they buy or the work
they do, how should design respond?

What’s going on
• COVID-19 is accelerating the shift from “me” to ”we”,
throwing those two priorities into stark relief.
Everyone is being forced to redesign their lives for the
sake of others.
• Buying things has become physically harder, and
buying for the sake of having is considered frivolous
and pointless.
• People’s sense of community has been given a much
needed boost. The swift emergence of
“caremongering” – a new word for looking after your
neighbors but also those further away, which
emerged in Canada then quickly spread to the UK – is
unlikely to rapidly go away.
• The severity of this virus and its impact on every
corner of our lives has served to remind us of the
fragility of life, and it’s not something we’ll forget in
a hurry.

From “me” to “we”
The values in the traditional Venn diagram of
desirability, feasibility and viability are fundamentally
changing–as are our design responses to them.

“Design is a connecting
tool between people,
economics and the
environment–and out of
this communion,
understanding and respect
for new ideas and products
with integrity can come.”
Dr. Carmen Hijosa
Designers and business owners must both
face this complexity head-on and unite the
best of systems thinking and practice.

What’s next
• Those producing physical goods will have to
change often complex supply chain and
manufacturing processes in time to meet
customers’ demand for purposeful products and
services that make a positive impact.
• Those in digital must replace their business model
of constant engagement and self-service with
alternatives that reinstate the interpersonal
connections, attention and time that people want.
• Design needs to adjust. Designers must broaden
their understanding to look at entire systems as
they increasingly design to meet the needs of
personal and collective values. New tools will
emerge.

Think Say Do
Fjordsuggests
Redefine desirability, feasibility,
viability in your work.
How can your offering become
regenerative by design, including
deleted items that disappear from
view?
How can you use design as a
central tool for creating alignment
around change, and the purpose of
innovation?
Show that you consider natural,
political and societal ecosystems
as equals– practice "do no harm"
in all areas rather than paying lip
service.
Demonstrate that
life-centered design is your new
norm, and not just a project.
Update your design skillset with
systems thinking.
Collaborate with other disciplines,
such as scientists, technologists
and futurists, and actively design
in systems that encourage people
to reduce their use of resources.
Reimagine the role of design in 2020.

Accenture Interactive helps the world’s leading brands transform their customer
experiences across the entire customer journey. Through our connected offerings in
design, marketing, content and commerce, we create new ways to win in today’s
experience-led economy. Accenture Interactive is ranked the world’s largest digital
agency in the latest Ad Age Agency Report for the fourth year in a row, and was named a
2019 Most Innovative Company in Advertising by Fast Company. To learn more, follow us
@AccentureACTIVE and visit www.accentureinteractive.com.
Fjord, part of Accenture Interactive, is a design and innovation consultancy that
reimagines people’s relationships with the digital and physical world around them. We
use the power of design to create services people love. By combining a human-centered
approach with robust methodology, we work with some of the world’s leading businesses
to make complex systems simple and elegant. Founded in 2001, Fjord has a diverse team
of 1,200 design and innovation experts in 33 studios, including Atlanta, Auckland, Austin,
Barcelona, Berlin, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Canberra, Chicago, Copenhagen, Dubai, Dublin,
Helsinki, Johannesburg, Lima, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Melbourne, Mexico City,
Milan, New York, Paris, San Francisco, São Paulo, Seattle, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney,
Tokyo, Toronto, Washington, D.C. and Zurich. To learn more, follow us @fjord and visit
www.fjordnet.com.
About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of
services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations.
Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries
and all business functions—underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network—
Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve
their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With 505,000
people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to
improve the way the world works and lives.
Visit us at www.accenture.com
Disclaimer: This document is intended for general informational purposes only and does
not take into account the reader’s specific circumstances, and may not reflect the most
current developments. Accenture disclaims, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable
law, any and all liability for the accuracy and completeness of the information in this
presentation and for any acts or omissions made based on such information. Accenture
does not provide legal, regulatory, audit, or tax advice. Readers are responsible for
obtaining such advice from their own legal counsel or other licensed professionals.
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Fjord Trends 2020 COVID-19 Presentation