2022: The Year of Infrastructure
In 2014, then-President Barack Obama gave a speech on the importance of building infrastructure for future virus-borne pandemics. His predecessor, President George W. Bush, delivered similar speeches as they related to HIV and SARS viruses. The following two successive administrations each were and are plagued with the inability to get infrastructure planning right. As a result, infrastructure has been an ongoing challenge in mitigating the most disastrous outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The fast-spreading Omicron variant will lay bare naked infrastructure gaps for all to see. We will see infrastructure gaps affecting such systems as:
City and county government services
Healthcare systems, networks, and services
School and education systems
Grocery and retail networks
Transportation systems
Utility services
To name a few. Every corner of America will be affected in some way.
While the recently passed $1 Trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill will begin to address many years of neglect, the impact will be long-term. Emergency readiness and infrastructure, as we see with the Omicron variant, will continue to have shortcomings.
What does this mean for business and commerce? Let’s look at what’s happened during the pandemic. While many businesses have changed strategies and tactics in terms of their customer-facing operations, many on the other hand have under-invested in their own infrastructure.
That is, they have under-invested in their infrastructure abilities and capacities to address how B2B buyers and consumers can and will interact. Resulting in shortcomings on how to enable worthwhile and engaging interactions for buyers and consumers.
This will be a year of reckoning for many businesses as well as government services. An awakening on the importance of future infrastructure planning to keep pace with a rapidly changing world.
A world where risks from dangerous disruptive viruses and the likes will be a constant presence…