have continued to be the norm since the return of employees to the workplace sometimes even when all attendees are physically present in the same office many of the leaders we interviewed expect to convene fewer large inperson gatherings and are planning more virtual events believing them to be more efficient direct goaloriented and brief than inperson meetings most acknowledged however that video meetings are more intense and reduce opportunities for personal conversations and small talk which have traditionally served to strengthen relationship bonds among colleagues3 accelerate digital transformationthe sudden unforeseen economywide lockdown forced firms to switch literally overnight to completely digital models speed was of the essence they needed to find creative solutions for emerging customer needs overcome process barriers imposed by the lockdown and find cost savings industries that would otherwise have taken years to realize their digital transformation agendas accelerated their efforts dramaticallythe crisis had the unexpected benefit of converting customers who had previously resisted innovations aimed at migrating them to digital platformsfor example new oriental group a leading education company had struggled for two years to convince parents students and educators to move to a livestreaming platform capable of supporting one million students simultaneously the pandemic led to a rapid widespread adoption of the platform even in cities not previously served by the firm4 reorganize to enhance decision makingtraditionally decision making in chinese companies has tended to be topdown with numerous reviews and approvals at many levels during the covid crisis many of our respondents reported a diminished role for midlevel managers speeding up digital transformation led to automation of some routine activities across a broad set of business sectorsping an bank for example has taken its dataoriented operation to the next level transforming its organization from the traditional hierarchical pyramid to a dumbbellshaped organization by increasing the number of senior executives focused on digital transformation and it keeping the number of middlelevel managers flat despite rapid growth and expanding the scale of front line marketfacing teams the firm has encouraged senior leaders to directly manage larger front line teams using digital tools and data changing their primary mode of working from managing with experience to managing with data the firms business performance reached record high levels in april 2020 despite the crisiswith leaders able to directly engage the entire organization through digital channels midlevel managers were no longer vital communication conduits between leadership and the front line senior managers were forced to become more deeply involved in strategy and policy decisions to ensure a speedy response to rapidly shifting business conditions a high degree of variation in local conditions moreover drove more realtime execution decisions by empowered front line teams closer to customers and more familiar with the local laws and conditionsyili group a leading dairy company faced unprecedented logistics and transportation challenges during the shutdown it had to reach out to farmers milk factories transportation companies and local governments as well as other partners in locations across the country to keep the