CEO Reflections on a Reordered World

Dear Colleagues, We are now almost two months into our great experiment of working remotely and I have been pleasantly surprised at the ease with which many of us have shifted to a virtual workplace. Zoom and other teleconferencing tools have made it possible for us to stay connected, while far apart. While the line between work and private life has all but disappeared, I urge all of you to take time for yourselves. An “always on” mentality does not create more productivity; in fact, studies have shown that taking time away from your desk—to walk, to exercise, to play with your kids—can spark creative thinking. To foster my own creativity, I have started to block time each week to think about the future—what will society look like post-COVID-19? What will be important to people after this pandemic has passed? And closest to my heart, in a world that will certainly suffer economic damage for a period of time, what will our customers need from ADI? How can we continue to keep innovating, especially in a recessionary environment where many companies will not survive? While the suffering from COVID-19 will stay with us all for some time, there is reason to be optimistic about ADI’s place in this reordered world. I can envision a few of the opportunities that will be available to us: Contactless commerce. Almost overnight, there has been shift in the way people and businesses work with the fast-paced growth and adoption of contactless commerce that comes with social distancing. We’ve all probably experienced this firsthand with the dramatic rise of e-commerce and entertainment services from Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, and so on. For ADI, digitalization of our services has been underway for many years, but the intensity of virtualization that we are now experiencing may fundamentally change how we work to best serve our customers. We must redouble our efforts to make it even easier for customers to choose and use our products. A reimagined healthcare system. The healthcare system has revealed its fragility, and I believe that there will be a renewed focus on the need for accessibility, affordability and wellness globally. The need to bring intelligent and precise sensing of patient conditions is something that ADI is well suited to lead. And, this will be become more prevalent as we move to telehealth and other remote healthcare options due to economic imperatives and health and safety needs. A hybridized supply chain. The global supply chain has, in more recent times, been slowly fracturing for political reasons. COVID-19 has shone a spotlight on the potential to reorder the global supply chain with an emphasis on closer proximity between the sources of demand and supply. In order for this to happen, automation systems will need to be deployed. This could be the window of opportunity for Industry 4.0 to deploy at scale—and our industrial solutions can help accelerate that transformation. Constant Connectivity. As I noted, cloud-based tools, like Zoom, are making it possible for many of us to be very productive while out of the office environment. For example, we conducted our first virtual board meeting without the need for planes, trains and hotels. In addition, my staff and I have been effectively conducting customer meetings and business reviews during this time of quarantine. Our communications business—both wired and wireless—will benefit from the need for robust infrastructure to deliver the bandwidth needed by an increasingly online population. Blue Skies and Clean Air. The rapid slowdown in economic activity, though massively destructive to many livelihoods, has delivered benefits that were unimaginable just a few short months ago.  We’re witnessing large decreases in carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide. I’m sure many of you have seen photos of pristine skies in Delhi, New York City or Los Angeles. This makes me wonder how we, as individuals, and ADI, as an industry leader, can be better stewards of our planet. COVID-19 has demonstrated our capacity to adapt and mobilize on a grand scale – now is the time to use our power as a company to step up our sustainability innovation and partnerships. The sustainability opportunity also opens a new way of thinking as we explore making working remotely a part of ADI’s culture.  One of my favorite authors, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, wrote a book called “Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder” following the 2008 financial crisis. In this book, Taleb writes that certain systems in nature, business and society actually thrive when they are stressed, when randomness takes root, and chaos is the order of the day. He calls these systems “antifragile”, which is another way of expressing durability. Antifragile systems have an ongoing ability to create, to learn and to adapt at a pace faster than their competitors. Over our 55-year history, ADI has proven to be an antifragile entity. We have survived crises and captured value during waves of change. While COVID-19 is a unique event in our lifetime, ADI’s resiliency and innovative culture have carried us forward—and will continue to do so. Our strength lies in our individual contributions and collective genius that are always focused on solving our customers’ hardest problems. Thank you all again for your dedication during this time and your desire to keep the engines of ADI running productively in this unusual circumstance. Stay safe and stay healthy,