The year 2020 was an unprecedented challenge for many industries: As a result of the corona pandemic, the economy collapsed and in many industries, nothing worked. Lockdowns required business closings for weeks. Supply chains were interrupted. Business models that had worked well up to now no longer had an income basis overnight. This inventory also applies to the beginning of 2021, so that business start-ups should, in a certain way, face a ‘new reality.
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Boundless Globalized Markets Also Involve Risks
In the dimensions described, the downsides of the globalized world revealed themselves in the form of extreme dependencies. But as formative as this economic crisis was, it can be instructive in terms of new trends and opportunities for the years to come. The winners of the crisis undoubtedly include online retail, which is also likely to bring sustained expansion to parcel services and logistics companies.
Online trading in particular will play a key role in the coming years due to the growing importance of mobile Internet use (keyword: m-commerce). Toy manufacturers were also able to look forward to strong growth during the crisis. However, these are likely to be just as limited in time as the run on toilet paper: Here the short-term increases in demand were sometimes 700%. Nevertheless, it is not a sustainable business model. And so we are right at the core of the topic: What are the prerequisites and trends to be able to become self-employed in 2021?
Good ideas alone are not enough: only a sustainable plan is a basis!
If you want to be successful in your own business, you first and foremost need a good and well-thought-out business idea. But what is a good business idea anyway? With a view to the sustainability of the business to be founded, social (mega) trends play a role, which is widely accepted by a large target group and can therefore act as an effective sales driver. The ongoing discussions about climate protection show that the issues of sustainability, regionality, and energy efficiency will play a central role in the coming years. This post aims to highlight the most importantBusiness ideas trends in 2021 will be presented in a nutshell.
Also Read : Digital Marketing Forecasts And Trends For 2021
What It’s All About: Align The Business Focus
Start-ups can find out more about the basic conditions that will shape business development in the years to come. It is to be expected that the crisis experience of the corona pandemic will result in sustainable change in many areas. It should be obvious that strategic adaptability is more important than ever in the 20s of the 21st century. Anyone who wants to make their business idea (more) crisis-proof will have to consistently accept digital challenges right from the start. This is the only way to create efficient structures and resilient processes that open up a high degree of crisis-proof flexibility. In the business plan a digital business strategy should be recognizable by 2021 at the latest: This can relate to working processes, marketing, and, above all, to the digital sales channels – this is where a high-growth future undoubtedly lies.
What is successful is what is sustainable …
… and shows corporate responsibility! The end of 2019 intensified form adopted climate package and a rethinking in large parts of the population will ensure that environmental aspects in many forward-thinking business models have to play an important role, even against the backdrop of rising energy prices: business models, which are very energy-intensive, are facing their competitiveness must keep energy costs as low as possible.
Anyone who wants to successfully found a business or find a good business idea must not be seduced by short-lived trends.
Rather, it must be about sustainable opportunities that are to be seized in the area of environmental and climate protection and that can also play an important role in future marketing (keyword: green marketing ). Before a large part of the theory is processed in the business plan, it is necessary to take a look at the economic reality, as specifically as possible for your location or radius of action.
2030 Agenda: Challenges for the New Decade
Anyone looking for business ideas for 2021 and the following years should deal with the following basic framework conditions. Experts emphasize that particularly rising energy prices and increasing uncertainties in the world economy can pose a threat to the economy. Besides, a financial bubble like the one in the US real estate sector in 2008 could recur at any time, with catastrophic consequences. Founders are therefore well advised to prepare holistically for upcoming challenges with the business plan and to develop solutions for conceivable scenarios.
How Brexit 2021 and the negotiated agreement will affect the economy in the EU and in England itself cannot yet be properly assessed. Business start-ups who see the UK as an important sales or procurement market should keep themselves up to date and take precautions.
The Crisis As A Burning Glass: These Trends Can Turn Into High-Growth Business Areas After 2021
As an event of the century, the corona pandemic has exposed weaknesses in many areas of social and economic life. No founder should therefore ignore the consequences, even if their industry was not particularly affected. In the future, financial security combined with increased strategic adaptability will become more important. In the crisis phase, companies saw how important reserves and excellent liquidity are.
No business start-up should rely on or rest on state aid. It is important to focus on possible worst-case scenarios in the business plan prepared and proactively develop concepts. Because experts assume that this global pandemic will not be the last. Otherwise, the corona crisis has triggered fields that could have used a major development boost beforehand:
- Virtual supply: forms of work are becoming more digital
The home office or even a contractual right to it should become much more natural from 2021. It can be assumed that more and more companies will rely on digital technologies to be able to work securely and productively on common goals outside of the company headquarters.
In this area, start-ups could become self-employed in a future-oriented manner with advisory services (IT renewal, etc.) or digital services (e.g. virtual assistance). In their role as employers, founders will in the future have to increasingly examine the extent to which employees can regularly work from home.
By the way, virtual care can specifically relate to the health sector, in which many experts see very good prospects for the future. The field of telemedicine will become increasingly important in the coming years, especially since the shortage of specialist doctors is already clearly noticeable in some regions.
- Learning/education is becoming more digital
What has long been working well in other countries is still in its early stages in Germany. The area of digital learning can expect a new boom in the coming years. Anyone who can provide advice or establish themselves with the development of apps or learning platforms should set up their own business in a promising market.
- Keep distance? Robotics opens up many prospects
In times when social distancing is all the rage and skilled workers are hard to find as workers, robots, and pioneering concepts of artificial intelligence can open up future-oriented solutions. In the coming years, robots are likely to become more and more visible in everyday life: be it as helpers or as advisory service staff.
There is enormous potential in this technology, which our society has not yet even rudimentarily exploited. In this area, founders can now make the future come true and conquer new markets. There are hardly any limits to inventiveness if the necessary technical or engineering background is available.
- Tomorrow’s recruiting: Finding answers to the shortage of skilled workers
In many industries, for example in the health sector or technical professions, the shortage of skilled workers will be an enormous problem in 2021.
Anyone who finds a company must face this challenge with all its consequences right from the start. It is important to strengthen the corporate culture and understand younger employees better.
In the meantime, HR departments have to deal with the demands of different generations: Baby Boomers and traditionalists, Generation X and the so-called Millennials will soon meet Generation Z. In the fight for the best minds, startups, in particular, will have to better understand and satisfy the needs of young employees.
The corporate culture must open up a lively framework within which ALL generations can or want to achieve their top performance! Startups will not be able to compete with large corporations when it comes to salary payments. It will be all the more important to provide employees with convincing arguments at the corporate culture level and with a long-term perspective.
- 2021: Update For Corporate Finance And Supply Chains
To what extent emerging cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Co. will play an important role in future corporate financing remains to be seen, according to analysts and financial experts. In any case, before 2020, as a consequence of the euro and debt crisis, there were signs that traditional bank financing is no longer the panacea.
This is especially true for dynamic startups that operate in a highly innovative competitive environment. All forms of modern corporate finance should be checked from the start. It cannot be ruled out that new instruments will be created in the coming years. To be able to have this on the bill as well, entrepreneurs should follow the current development.
Also Read : The Most Exciting Business Ideas To Make Money In 2021
Requirements For The Business Plan 2021: Trends Have To Be Followed By Action!
In terms of risk analysis and assessment, the business model should be discussed in detail at the beginning: Globalization opens up the great advantage of free access to many markets. This can make supply chains very complex. If only one partner fails, the entire production can come to a standstill.
Many companies had to make this growth-destroying experience in the acute corona crisis. In this respect, it can be assumed that networking will be scaled back in some industries in the coming years.
Conclusion: Trends can be short-lived, so strategic planning must pursue long-term goals
In any case, one thing is certain regardless of all the trends shown: Without planning, no business idea will be successful in the long term, even if it fills a niche in the market, however promising. It can be assumed that competitors will also vie for potential customers. Therefore, start-ups should always be one step ahead. The Internet offers far-reaching opportunities for this. No start-up or entrepreneur should allow themselves to do without a digital corporate strategy after 2021!
Get on with the planning and use practical assistance!
Of course, the trends outlined here only embody rough framework conditions that need to be concretized through strategic planning. With this in mind, founders will find concrete business ideas as well as a lot of practical knowledge about planning and the use of funding opportunities to put their business project on a financially sustainable basis right from the start. And the term trend alone should make entrepreneurs prick up their ears because fast-moving product cycles are no longer uncommon.
In this respect, it is important to keep a close eye on your target market and the behavior of customers to be able to react quickly to changes. In this sense, a really good business idea is always able to reinvent itself or to be able to be adapted to current framework conditions.
Summary: Trends & opportunities in 2021 after Corona or for the new decade
- Sustainability and the responsible handling of scarce resources are becoming ever greater challenges for companies (also concerning their marketing). Many customers are increasingly relying on regionality!
- Companies will have to reckon with greater efforts to protect the climate shortly. This applies to higher taxes on the one hand and more marketing-effective measures on the other
- Due to the growing importance of mobile Internet use, so-called m-commerce will become a major growth engine in the new decade. The corona crisis is accelerating this trend, as the successful Amazon model impressively shows.
- The economic effects of Brexit 2021 cannot be estimated yet. Companies affected by Brexit should therefore closely monitor developments and prepare for realistic scenarios at an early stage.
- The corona crisis has revealed future-oriented fields of action in which founders can position themselves in a growth-oriented manner or which they should strategically appreciate themselves in the business plan:
- Focus on digital forms of work / virtual care.
- Robotics and Artificial Intelligence: The Worker / Service Person of Tomorrow?
- Digital education: the future belongs to this business area!
- Use modern recruiting in the fight against the shortage of skilled workers and to harmonize different generations in the company.
- After Corona, corporate financing should be subjected to a crisis-proof update.
- Sustainability is the key, also with a view to international dependencies: future-oriented business models reduce dependencies and thus ultimately the risk of failure.