Lingering uncertainty? Long-term crisis management concerning the current situation in the world? How to build a resilient company? How to stand and survive into new-normal?
The current situation isn’t difficult not only CFO & CEO in its positions. Let’s see what key decisions business strategists can make and that will help create a resilient business on the path to business prosperity and growth.
Lack of cash, a transition to the home office, necessary change in business processes, the need to digitize and automate many on the administrative agenda, the need to flexibly change. These are the most common challenges for entrepreneurs, managers and all businessmen/women in recent months increasingly than they used to.
The company’s resilience consists of three key points:
- Financial resilience = ability to face and withstand events affecting liquidity returns…
- Operational resilience = ability to absorb impacts, changes, technologies and market needs
- Reputational resilience = ability to react, communicate and create trust not only externally, but also inside society
Corporate management of the resilient company
must realize that none of these key strategic pillars of the company’s resilience can be omitted or neglected. Like a stool with three legs…
For a successful change, it must always be complex and therefore a change in multiple directions is often required.
Crisis plans of all crisis managers and managers mostly work with the theories “What if…”
- Change in demand
- Possibility for employees to go to work
- Irregularity of material/goods supplies
- Natural and other restrictions (government)
- New necessary processes (health checks, spacing, etc.)
But are they just risk?
Yes for Amazon, for example, the current situation is an indisputable opportunity, which also makes good use of…
But let’s go back to building resilience.
What steps to take to make your business resilient and healthy company?
- Schedule for different periods. Count on more possible scenarios (and never forget the “worst-case scenario” and be prepared to come out of it with your head up)
- Plan and look at things from different perspectives – an outside view, outside of operational blindness, is often very effective
- Prepare different scenarios for the company’s process planning
- Monitor your actions and their consequences, review regularly and bring possible adjustments to the next steps</li><li>Work with your strategic plans, forecasts and cashflow
- Have a list of possible alternative vendors
Basic questions when building a resilient business:
- Do I have a clear idea of what financial, operational and reputational resilience means for the company?
- Are we operationally and financially prepared for another emergency or crisis?
- Is our infrastructure and service provider ecosystem agile and event-ready?
- Do we know how changing market dynamics and the development of public opinion can affect a company and its reputation?
- Does our company’s culture support resilience when it comes to managing disruptive elements (continuity) and adapting to economic, political or cultural changes (adaptive capacity)?
- Do we have a clear purpose that stakeholders can trust and support?
- Are we currently taking a proactive and holistic approach to building organizational resilience and risk management?
Flexibility
is another, but not the last, important part of resilient companies. The ability to adapt, to increase activity in the field for which there is demand, and vice versa to reduce the ability to not to suffer where there are no temporary sales.
Finally, I dare to recall the basic mantra of more than one crisis manager:
Don’t be freezy by fear.
If you’re scared, you’ll never solve anything. But if you really feel like you’re not going to give this up, it’s perfectly ok to call in a specialist. On the contrary, you may be pleasantly surprised at how elegantly this can be solved.
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