The New Normal in IT

CHAPTER 1Lasting Business Impacts and Resource Sourcing After a Global Pandemic

Occurrences can be unpredictable. If we have to endure a cascade of rumpling coincidences, it's fate that dictates our lives, taking over the common procedure of “timing,” and, thus, sealing the bondage of our free choice. Once our choice is kidnapped and strangled to the core, fate checkmates our destiny.

—ERIK PEVERNAGIE¹

Introduction

As I start writing this text, there have been 144,108,248 Covid-19 cases globally with 31,873,253 in the United States and 3,062,945 deaths globally and 569,530 in the United States, respectively (see Exhibit 1.1).² I am relatively sure, as many public health professionals have discussed in the past several months, that there are far more cases and deaths globally as a result of various factors including improper counting, deaths occurring outside of hospitals, fatalities due to untreated fatal diseases such as cancer going undertreated during the height of the pandemic, and suicides. The global pandemic of 2020–2021 will go down in history as the most devastating impact on human life in our generation. The pandemic will have lasting effects on trade, commerce, travel, human behavior in business operations, and how employees work around the globe going forward.

Combine the likelihood that a fair percentage of the United States and global population will not opt to receive a Covid-19 vaccine with likely future variants that develop that make current vaccines less ...