As I sit and write this in April 2020, the world is in the middle of the most significant global health event that any of us can remember. Apart from the obvious impact on individual people and their families, COVID-19 has created a major crisis in businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Literally, no business is exempt or unaffected.
Even those that have become busier due to the goods and services they provide have had to have a serious re-think about how they operate.
Some businesses have successfully implemented a well thought out Business Continuity Plan (BCP). I suspect many have implemented a BCP that has been sitting on the shelf for years (maybe some will start with … as we approach the new millennium and the likelihood of the Y2K bug impacting our business)! Many, many more have scrambled really hard to create a workable model for their businesses because there was an underestimation of how big an impact a crisis like this could have. Other businesses have simply shut the doors and closed down.
Regardless of which category your business fits into, one thing is certain in my mind – no business will ever succeed in late 2020 and beyond by going back to how things were twelve months earlier. Things have changed dramatically. Customer expectations have moved. Employee expectations have moved. Shareholder expectations have moved. You simply cannot go back.
I’m not saying that you need to throw everything out and start again. What I am saying is that there will be more things that change than stay like they were three or four months ago.
And once you accept that there is no turning back, you’ll be ready to take the steps towards the new version of your business. I’ll talk about that next time.