The last weeks we all were concerned to stay healthy and to try to understand the Covid pandemic, which came into our life in so short time. The unprecedented lockdown provided us plenty of time to give many of thoughts.
Most of the companies had to manage in no time huge decline of turnover, but at the end of a short crash is always somehow manageable. The problem of covid is that initial hopes for a quick recovery are dispelling.
Not even the experts can foresee the development of the next weeks, but what we can be sure about is that even in best case scenarios the normalisation will take many months or even years.
Even worse, the overall financial impact is still to come.
So the big question is what we can do to secure the survival of business and to minimise the threats and losses?
Realism
The first step to make is a realistic assessment of the situation. Statements like “we will make it” are ok for private discussions with our family and friends, but not a roadmap for your company. Realism does not mean to be pessimistic, but you need to try for an accurate evaluation of things to come.
Immediate actions
We need to understand the importance of taking immediate, specific and decisively actions. In this unique situation it is no exaggeration to say that every day counts!
Disruption
Forget about how you were doing business until yesterday. The next day will be very different referring the what and the how.
Your action plan should consider on:
• Costs: Minimize immediately your fix costs. This is painful, but there is no alternative. There are many options to transform your fix costs into flexible costs without any discount on your operation and performance. In contrary, you will be probably surprised about how new ways of running your operation can optimise your overall efficiency.
• Digitalization: Implement and setup digital tools at all levels of your company. Forget about travelling and personal meetings for a long time. Take advantage of digital communication tools and think about digital promotion and sales of your products. What appeared to be impossible up to now, most likely has to become possible now!
• Demand: For most of the companies demand of current customers and current markets will drop significantly. Important is that this development won’t be a bad surprise. You should expect it. The good news are that there are still many customers and many markets you don’t sell yet. Now is the time!
• Innovation in products and services: never waste a crisis! Consider the crisis as an unique opportunity to think about evolving and innovating your products and services. Take advantage of the current setback and transform it into an opportunity.
Stay optimistic
Panic and anxiety are in the human nature, but in business they are the worst advisors and lead to bad results. Don’t spend time on never ending theories and discussions and proceed day by day. Each day of taking actions in the right direction will pay off sooner as you think.
