THE ACCELERATOR:

Even as the U.S. and Europe begin discussing how to reopen businesses, company leaders themselves say the coronavirus has jolted them into thinking about more permanent changes in how we all work--shifts that will last much longer than this crisis and could forever reconfigure the entire notion of offices.

In interviews this week, executives at global companies say COVID-19 has hurled them at warp speed into a future that they had envisioned unfolding slowly over many years. And to their astonishment, their online-only operations have worked well--raising the possibility of continuing much of the lockdown's online-first work that has dominated since early March.

"We're trying things in 24 hours, and then just rolling it out," David Kenny, CEO of the global data analytics company Nielsen, says. "I hate this pandemic. But the velocity of experimenting with new things, I love that. I think some of that will stay."

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