What just hit the world? Is business really immune to it?
The text was first published in Issue 35 of Brandient Newsletter.
These reflections stem from the increasingly frequent, quietly profound conversations we’ve been having with clients who turn to Brandient for help navigating transformation—cultural, organizational, and strategic.
They come with questions about repositioning, pivoting, and deep structural shifts. In other words: high-stakes, complexity-at-the-core work. And today, more than ever, such strategic thinking must stretch beyond balance sheets and brand frameworks. It must absorb the broader forces shaping our time—social, economic, anthropological, geopolitical. Business does not operate in a vacuum; it’s embedded in the currents of the world.
Which brings us to a question:
When society itself is faltering—as it undeniably is—can business still serve as an anchor of certainty? Should it?
When society is split and dichotomous, where people look at the same reality and see fundamentally different things, the business world should be a terra firma, because it is based on a social contract, with functional written norms and unwritten rules that make people align towards the same pursuit: growth, return on investment, profit.
Current reality shows us that, due to the same macro circumstances, businesses are under attack by the very modern plagues that erode society. And what exactly attacks the business world, more specifically?
- Functional illiteracy, as an officially recognized societal plague, in Romania at least, to start with. Businesses cannot remain immune to new cohorts of young people that the educational institutions conveyor belt spits out into the open world (often in decision-making positions), who cannot follow a strain of thought or exert critical judgment in most basic situations. History proved that "common sense" was fed by well-made schooling. No longer the case.
- Humanistic illiteracy (as a subcategory of the first and a deeper layer of the same disease). Because for pupils and students (in a percentage of 42% officially, in Romania) who cannot understand what they read, the reading of the first three pages of a book is an ordeal. Therefore, they have zero access to deeper thinking, to ideas and ideals, to models and idols worth worshipping, to logical reasoning and fruitful debates through syllogistic development. A dazzling high percentage of them are lost to themselves, to their families, and to society.
- Social anxiety generated by the doom scrolling and the dopamine culture is only outpaced by the FOMO concocted and cocooned in the convenience culture of "everything-now-easy-and-cheap" expectations, which we are already entitled to. Thank God the short-termism we all bathe in no longer allows us to contemplate five-year plans in business, as that would be killing!
- Societal chasm: the yawning gap between the haves and the have-nots, between the fortunate and disenfranchised, between profligacy and destitution, between the neighbor I know and the "barbarian" out there. The class struggle, once thought a relic of Marxist theory, is staging a fierce comeback—one that gives goosebumps to the polished, well-mannered, pacified corporate world.
- Political leadership failure through endemic corruption and perversion of societal role models. Society files are ... corrupted and therefore not a trustworthy, legitimate open source. The sense of entitlement and impunity that the corrupt and corruptible elite have only adds to the scene.
- Propaganda and manipulation teaming up with devastating deepfake finish the rest, consuming what is left of people’s intellect, empathy, and self-esteem. The power of social networks to discharge humanity’s sewage of dark ... myriad of instincts is recognized as devastating at a global scale. The medieval outlook on the world, the magic thinking showing humanity’s regressive penchants, and all the hocus-pocus bogus that floats fetidly in the public discourse everywhere in the world are but a timid consequence of that.
To sum up, the spirit of our age—tempora et mores—is marked not by resilience in its noble form, but by its toxic excess. We've learned to accommodate metastasizing relativism, to normalize the presence of evil, to absorb it into our daily operations. Business as usual, indeed.
Now what?
In the face of this velvet apocalypse that we are experiencing—and that we need to acknowledge if we are honest with ourselves—the question is, how can the business world still stand? What will anchor it amid so many plagues?
The brighter thought of today and the underlying presupposition of it all: the antidote to mayhem is always looking at the mayhem in the face and still searching for the balance of good, against all odds. Embracing serenely this paradox might be a good start. The business world (the Romanian business class included, as it is closer to my skin) may practice the following oldies but goldies, idealism-packed tenets:
- Take a public stance in thorny matters, plant a flag, contribute to the public agenda on what matters truly, in social, educational, political, and environmental matters that impact people’s lives on a bigger scale.
- Establish values and principles of good practice in the core of any business endeavor, as a measure for basic sanity. No longer mere ceremonial words on office walls or in mission statements, values and principles became vital organs of businesses. They are the makers or breakers of businesses in the long run.
- Establish "Return on Good" as a business performance indicator, at equal dignity with ROI. Businesses must return good value to society, prosperity to people, and foster progress in any shape.
- Struggle for genuinely humanistic relevance, in providing goods and services, not sowing only convenience, pragmatism, or cold transactional relationships.
- Design organizational cultures that are well articulated, intentional, and aware of their power to make good environments for people. Organizational culture is paramount, good behaviors are not overrated. People of character and competence, young or mature, are everywhere. The world is beautifully salvageable.
- Employ and train the younger generation, as they will raise the bar. Out of a survival need, the same young generation that is disoriented might be one that will push meaning into businesses because they will cut corners towards authenticity, integrity, and purpose-driven leadership.
Business leaders are stepping into a new role, one that transcends balance sheets and enters the civic sphere: to counterweight political leaders, to tilt the public agenda healthily towards benign, useful, elevated topics, to encourage evolution, to instill hope in society.
So yes—business is not untouched by chaos. But unlike many institutions, it has already developed the antibodies. It knows how to adapt, to steady, and to lead.
Mihaela Rădulescu, Partner and Managing Director, Bucharest Office
About Brandient
Brandient is an independent brand strategy and design consultancy founded in Bucharest in 2002 by Aneta Bogdan, Cristian Kit Paul and Mihai Bogdan — never part of a global network, working directly for the owners, CEOs and boards of its clients, with an all-senior team and category exclusivity. In over two decades the firm has created or rebuilt more than 300 brands, 279 of them published as case studies at brandient.com/work — from Romania’s national leaders to brands carried worldwide. The firm has been active in Southeast Asia for more than a decade. The work has earned 84 international awards and distinctions — most recently a Red Dot (2025) and two Graphis Golds (2026) — 64 documented mentions in international design books and publications, and, in 2015, a place among the inaugural inductees of the REBRAND Hall of Fame, alongside Interbrand and MetaDesign.