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Hello Everyone,

Welcome to the Marg Advisory Services Blog – Touchstones.

2021 is finally here and as we step through it gingerly, there is fragile hope and an incessant desire for healing. Make no mistake, things have changed for us, subtly and obviously, in ways that will only manifest even more strongly in the coming days. In 2020, what the world has endured collectively, is trauma. Trauma at all levels – individual, community, nations and humanity. It is how we have learnt to cope with this trauma and how much we work on altering our behaviour, responding to these manifold layers and levels – that will define how robust our future will be, in the decade ahead.

At the end of a year, we traditionally indulge in two exercises – looking back and looking ahead. Looking back, the lists come out – Top 10 moments, Top 20 films, Top 50 photographs. Looking ahead – the predictions start about what the world will look like. There is a kink to this process this time though.

2020 was not a normal year. We believe this annus horribilis requires us to look back, to understand how to look ahead. The predictions started as early as March, about the future of the world, as lockdowns started affecting life; infection rates and death rates soared, healthcare systems came under tremendous pressure and life as we knew it changed for good. The top 5 predictions we have all come to accept and that are coming true as we speak are:

1. Health will be top priority for individuals, communities and nations in the seasons ahead. Also, witness the spurt in organic, health supplements and exercise routines of all kinds in the market. Healthcare budgets that have been low in many developing countries (India 3.6% of GDP) will undergo a radical overhaul if for nothing else but for the vaccination drives. More importantly, we believe an insidious effect of the pandemic and uncertainty will be a spike in mental health cases. A concerted effort is needed here to ensure help through outreach, as mental health support is woefully inadequate in many countries.
2. The world is going to be more online with ripple effects of this being felt in many areas – consumer buying behaviour (read increase in online shopping), the rise of the home office, decrease in travel, virtual entertainment and hospitality. While some of this will reverse as more people get vaccinated, it takes 60 days to form a habit and some of these new habits will become indelible.
3. The green economy is here to stay. Sustainability will be less of a buzzword, as the world witnessed the beneficial effects of a lockdown on natural systems, as well as the fearsome increase in hurricanes, fires and floods as a result of our unbridled industrialisation and consumption. The Biden election, growth in electric vehicle ecosystems, stock market rise of renewables and Elon Musk’s crowning as the richest man point to a vital pivot in the way we think of green in our business and that will persist.
4. A rainbow world of diversity makes social and business sense. The Black Lives matter protests, the anti CAA demonstrations and the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement showed a rising upswell among people to enshrine diversity as a keystone of modern existence. Businesses responded to these with product changes that reflected the concern among people. We believe this will increasingly be a trend in the coming year where all social and business governance layers will be tested for diversity by the consumers of their products.
5. The importance of the small business to the economy will be respected more and the 1%’s economic control will be challenged. If ever there was a feeling of disproportionate impact of the pandemic it was in this case. The trials of the migrant labour in India were a case in point of egalitarian planning that blindly ignored manifest inequality in our economy. The farmer protests in India, the suffering of small businesses around the world as financial packages failed to deliver and the increasing monopoly of big business have challenged the status quo. Globally, governments will increasingly address the presence of persistent inequality, spread social safety nets wider and build a robust environment for bringing the largest employer of the economy back – the small business.

2021 has so many hopes pinned on it after the past year that it is bound to fail on delivering a lot of the promise; collectively however, these trends point to the hope of emerging green shoots, of a multifaceted recovery that is built on a wellspring of suffering and a deep desire to heal. The challenges are not over yet so we are advised to please continue practicing the 3 basic tenets of hand-washing, wearing a mask and maintaining social distance. What would add to overall wellness is for us to use local, consume prudently and nourish our connect with nature. 

With these thoughts, we wish you and yours a healthy and productive year. Be well. Do well. Stay inspired.

We’d love to hear from you. Do share your feedback, thoughts and ideas on touchstones@margadvisory.com

And please, keep reading!

Sukanya Rath
Editor, Touchstones
January 12, 2021, Bhubaneshwar
Odisha, India