If you’re like me, and most people around the world, you now find yourself in a new stay-at-home, shelter-in-place-mandated kind of #newnormal. This new normal may now include homeschooling kids or both parents trying to work at the same time, and let’s face it, everyone trying to use the little bit of wifi that is available around the house.

I Have a New Coworker

My new normal consists of working from home with my 19-month-old daughter. My husband’s role is essential. So, it is just me and her. My new coworker joins me on company and customer calls throughout the day. She’s even included a couple of falls out of her chair a time or two while we were on the calls. I’ve actually started daily #coworkerchronicles posts on my social media that shows the highs and lows of working full time while trying to keep a toddler alive by yourself (huge shout out to the moms that do this every day).

I’ve realized that there is one word that can sum up this entire pandemic for me: adjusting. I’ve had to adjust to working at home, adjust my daughter’s normal schedule to work around work calls, and change the way I go out in public. We’ve changed the way my husband comes home from work (no more walking straight into the door to big hugs), the way we celebrate religious holidays, and even the way we see family (shout out to Zoom and FaceTime). We as a human race conform to the needs of our society and you name it… we as a world have adjusted.

I’ve realized that there is one word that can sum up this entire pandemic for me: adjusting.

I, as well as other aviation professionals, foresee adjustments in the parts industry after this pandemic. As parts sellers look to compete for business from fewer customers, new ways of doing business that overcome inefficiencies of the past will be key. In the past, the parts industry as a whole has been slow to change. Parts companies rely on legacy systems that offer limited, if any, mobility and true eCommerce is very limited.

Now that we are used to working from home, mobility will be an expectation and not something that is just nice to have. And by mobility, I’m not just talking about working from my computer. Anything that I can do these days on my phone makes working from home 100 times easier.

Speaking of making things easier, a recent Aviation Week article took a look at our industry’s opportunity to use automation. The article looked at how COVID-19 would really kick-off the aviation industry's use of automation going on to say that “Faster digitization would reap even bigger gains” referring to what our post-COVID-19 life looks like.

Automating the Parts Sales Lifecycle

Looking at the use of automation, automating areas throughout the parts sales lifecycle would not only save time and money, but it would also cut out the waste/noise that so many companies see in their day-to-day. This is just one of the features that AeroParts Now offers. Leveraging artificial intelligence, AeroParts Now reduces this noise and delivers a prioritized list of top opportunities. Automation also drives other key areas throughout the platform and is offered as a cloud-based system as well as a mobile app.  

Is your business willing to adjust to meet their #newnormal?

Investments like this are not easily justified in any business even when times are good, but when a downturn such as this hits us, typical justification and ROI are no longer sufficient. With the advent of artificial intelligence and machine learning enabling automation of highly manual processes and error-prone tasks, the benefits of digitization offer an ROI can be quickly justified, especially in this cost-conscious climate. Businesses' new normal will be focused on reducing overhead, including inventory, and will be hypersensitive to staff resources, but with a new “do more with less” mindset. Businesses with the vision to build a better organization and one that is built for the future will leverage this opportunity.

One thing is for sure, our industry will forever be changed by this pandemic. Is your business willing to adjust to meet their #newnormal?