Barclays’ Hiral Patel discusses top themes post-COVID

This week, Hiral Patel, Head of Sustainable & Thematic Investing at Barclays, was interviewed by AlphaSense on the post-COVID market. Patel covered Barclays’ 2030 thematic roadmap, backed by research from over 40 sector analysts, industry experts, and listed companies.

Barclays Hiral Patel discusses top themes in a post COVID world

Source: Barclays: Sustainable & Thematic Investing: 2030 Thematic Roadmap: COVID Lens. To see the full report, log in to AlphaSense.

Barclays’ 2030 thematic roadmap plots 150 trends across six paradigms, including Technology & Innovation; Consumer, Food & Retail; Industrial, Manufacturing & Transportation; Health & Modern Science; Energy & Environment and Society & Culture.

To assess how the pandemic could impact the future pathway of each trend, Patel explained that Barclays Research grouped each trend into three categories: COVID acceleration (accelerated time frame/ larger market opportunity), steady state (unlikely to be impacted by the pandemic), and COVID deceleration (slower time frame/ smaller market opportunity).

Within COVID acceleration, there were five key themes that emerged from their analysis:

HealthTech & Consumer Health

  • COVID will likely shift the paradigm of how healthcare is provided (telehealth and AI drug discovery).
  •  Greater desire for consumers to regain control of personal health (digital health and wellness).
  • Healthcare policy will be a crucial area of debate in upcoming elections.

Regional Supply Chains & Industrial Automation

  • Sectors reliant on manual labor will be incentivized to consider industrial automation.
  • Value of logistic assets will grow as sectors invest in last-mile and micro-fulfillment.
  • Governments will be keen to improve the domestic resiliency of key sectors, including healthcare, medical supplies and food.

Online Learning & Flexible Working

  • Flexible working will become a mainstream reality.
  • Online learning will grow in higher education and business-to-consumer education technology.
  • Governments will consider additional safety nets, such as Universal Basic Income.

Sustainable Travel & Public Safety

  • A large portion of business travel is unlikely to recommence.
  • Additional measures will be taken to ensure public safety, including within travel, hospitality, and public transportation.
  • Sectors will transition to sustainable energy options, particularly during the COVID recovery period.

Digital & Internet Connectivity

  • COVID will likely further accelerate the transition towards a cashless society and digital inclusion.
  • Hygiene concerns will support the shift to alternative means of contactless payment authentication, such as facial recognition.
  • Governments will be keen to strengthen digital infrastructure for high-capacity broadband (5G.)

To read the full report (or to read more Barclays Research), login to AlphaSense, or start a free trial. To access the full webcast, please explore our Expert Briefing Series.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AlphaSense
AlphaSense

AlphaSense is a market intelligence platform used by the world’s leading companies and financial institutions. Since 2011, our AI-based technology has helped professionals make smarter business decisions by delivering insights from an extensive universe of public and private content—including company filings, event transcripts, news, trade journals, expert calls, broker reports, and equity research. Our platform is trusted by over 2,000 enterprise customers, including a majority of the S&P 100. Headquartered in New York City, AlphaSense employs over 1,000 people across offices in the U.S., U.K., Finland, Germany, and India.

Read all posts written by AlphaSense