7 things your business should be doing to prepare for the end of Corvid19

The most important thing to remember apart from staying healthy is these viruses historically arrive, do a lot of damage and then disappear very fast. While it seems everything is desperate with Corvid19, in turmoil and you may also fear capital markets may collapse, in a matter of weeks things will return to normal, and yes this will happen pretty quickly.

Here are the 7 things as a business both big or small you should be doing now.

ONE: Demand

Whilst business appears to have come to a standstill, in background essential services continue, the way to think of it this scenario is ‘demand has been delayed’. Commerce has stopped because of instruction from government to flatten the curve of infection, to slow down exponential scaling effects that double every few days. To prevent further contagion.

In 99% of industries and markets demand remains dormant, it has been put on hold. But given how quickly things will come back on stream, with all those frustrated punters, wanting to do the things, to buy the things they did before all of this started.

Should you prepare your business with the prospect that demand is merely delayed, and when the switch is turned back On, demand will be there immediately. People will want to go on holiday after being cooped up, to see loved ones, while others will want to buy summer clothes, while others will put their efforts into their jobs to catch up, meet colleagues and travel to meet customers coming back online.

Already the Chinese markets have gone through the curve since the end of January 2019, is coming back online. The large chunk of the world’s manufacturing base, dormant for much of 2020 is ramping up. The worst-case scenario for businesses is having lost out over the past few months, is not be ready for when things start to recover, and the restrictions are lifted.

TWO: New Business Plan

As business returns to what will be a new normal, remember your old business plan is already broken. Given the circumstances, what will happen as demand comes back online? What adjustments do you need to be made now, today. Not wait until everyone returns to the office, and you call a meeting to see how everyone is doing. This you should be doing online anyway, making use of the collective thinking of those colleagues at home.

Ask yourself this question: could your business cope with an immediate 30% uplift of new business, or a 200% increase in new order entry? Are your people and systems up to the job. Will they be able to cope with a sudden surge in demand. Will your website crash. Will your fulfilment capabilities crash, given your inventory may be low or out of date.

Or if you are one of the unlucky businesses suffering capital drying up and a loss of real customer demand, what will be your plans to catch up, close the gap. What  are you doing about it now?

Are there opportunities you can use your infrastructure, your service proposition or product or software engineering to move into another area, where gaps have opened up.

THREE: Re-Capitalisation

Given the circumstances for many businesses where things simply stopped in terms of top-line income, it is likely the fixed costs continued which has seen the financial health of the business deteriorate. With infrastructure and overheads and adjusted staffing requirements, new capital will be required. Despite various governments’ promises to cover and supplement some of these business costs (grants, cheap loans), the time lag to receiving cash has already done damage, and many businesses may not receiver and may have already gone bust.

It is worth remembering there is $73trillion of private wealth waiting in the wings, although this number is likely to be much lower. The big private equity funds, venture capital and investors have capital they MUST deploy, as they themselves still need to make returns. There is a lot of capital and given interest rates the cost of capital remains historically low.

Re-capitalising is a great option providing of course you have sufficient assets and prospects to show how you will close the gap. And yes this is also why you need an adjusted Business Plan. A new plan that accommodates much of what you have experienced and how you will deal with something similar in years to come. As it will happen again.

FOUR: Technology

Look, I am not advocating buying lots of new tech and upgrading everything. However I am advocating to look at the use of tech, to supplement your business given what has just happened. There are summary free or low costs services, cheap apps and software that when deployed can really make a difference to your cost to acquire and cost to serve customers. Ask yourself this: is your online presence strong enough to cover the current level of sales, or support the pent-up demand?

Or have things completely dried up and you’re being outsold? Could customers easily find you? Where do your online presence rank in Google terms? During this crisis were customers able to reach you and ask questions, follow up work in progress, or did you leave them hanging? Something they will not forget.

It is likely you found your technology infrastructure was inadequate, especially the supporting Home Working on a large scale. You now have hundreds more people logging in. So how about security?  How do you go about validating who the person is Logging In, how is access granted, decisions made and transactions signed off (authority), how well is the companies assets and information protected with all these new people trying to access from outside?

Was your IT function or outsource partner up to the job? Are employees, partners and customers complaining they couldn’t get any help, with anything?

As part of a new plan it is a good time to re-evaluate the vulnerabilities of your tech infrastructure, your business model, your capital requirements and business continuity but also who was up to job. Rather than wait for the recovery start to review the lessons you have learned and what changes will you be making to deal with delayed demand, and adjusting your business model to ensure you are ready for any recovery just over the horizon, a matter of several weeks.

FIVE: Outreach

Whilst much of the world goes into a huddle, albeit a social distancing huddle, confined to homes, flats and apartments, now is actually a great time to reach out to exist customers and find new ones. Data from other similar events suggest that when times are hard, markets freeze or struggle, there is a financial crisis, the companies that tend to do well are the ones that are bolder, recognise a sales opportunity and push the brand and proposition harder. Certainly harder than your nearest competitors. The land grab effect.

Many businesses (your competitors) will be struggling, have gone bust or will wait for things to return to normal before doing anything. Believing there is not much they can do. Which is always the wrong answer.

Now is a perfect time to reach out to people, using social media, planning the new campaign, doing some lead generation because it is easier to get their attention. Many people will be bored, thus open to approaches and receptive to a positive message, where you can start the conversation.

Six: Make Use of Time

It is not as if you have less time on your hands!  With most people not having the grind of the daily commute, the various interruptions throughout the day with meetings or  dealing with office politics, most people in business have more time than before the outbreak.

We all lack ‘thinking time’ when we are at work and trapped on the treadmill of work/life balance. Which tips the balance towards work, most of the time. Taken along for a ride rather than stepping off and decided which ones to go on, before this crisis we were on a roller coaster we couldn’t get off, until it stops at 6pm.

The big question – what are you going to do with all that extra time?

Most people spend far too much time on pointless social media activities, because it is addictive and they mistakenly see it as doing something useful. Our time is thus compromised. Unless your job is brand building, lead generation or advertising, social media should be used for outreach for customers, partners and industry experts. Now is a good time to break the social media habit and use your time to do many of the things discussed here, get ahead of the game, catch up on all those things your were meaning to do, clear you backlog and prepare for what is to come.

We hope for a rapid recovery, with a Plan B where recovery is a lot slower.  We are entering a new place of doing business, where the world will recover from this massive trauma, where behaviours that were forced to adapt may become the new norm, creating new behaviours and thus new opportunities. A create awareness for self sufficiency, to have back up resources, to invest in communities that can support each other, to vote for governments that will take action. That support making wider changes to protect commerce, the planet and humanity.

SEVEN: Plan for Next Time

There is no doubt another pandemic will strike. Although we have enjoyed a period of history free of global wars, other wars rampage across the planet. Hidden wars of one nation against another. Or digital nations with no actual state causing havoc. Manifesting as trade wars, which many think is related to this outbreak. Despite the conspiracy theories we are seeing a new manifestation of the definition of war. Whilst many may not define these as wars they are often referred to as – the war of terror, the war on climate change, against animal cruelty, the war again poverty and the war against digital hacking.

Bill Gates predicted this one in 2015 and confirmed we were not prepared. The new millennial generation haven’t experience anything like this before, their first global event. We are left with one thing that is certain, there will be more of these kinds of issues in our lifetime, but not necessarily a human virus or bio-weapon, but other forms of attack and viruses.

I believe everyone now realises how fragile society is at its heart. How easily things can be impacted as our world in recent weeks has simply stopped. Not only has this one demonstrated life itself is fragile, but our way of life, our civilisation can dramatically be halted, changed and altered.

However, beyond Covid19 we must not forget other forms of virus lurk in dark places. Remember the Notpetya malware virus (part of Sandworm) caused havoc to national infrastructure in 2017, attacking Industrial Control Systems of energy and power plants and others support infrastructure. It is however likely you have never heard of it because the damage was limited, as it attacked vulnerabilities in Microsoft software, but its effects were felt as US national infrastructure was being tested and probed.

These ‘dark energy’ malware attacks brought companies to their knees, including Maersk the global shipping and logistics business, the intrusion closed access to  ports, preventing the movement of good and services. I remember the ‘wanna cry’ virus that hit the German Railways as I stood helpless on the train platform in Essen, everything went out.  It infected 100s of hospitals, as ransomware, locking systems and preventing access. A so called denial of service attack (DDOS) which are now AI enabled, and god forbid they become QuantumAi enabled, they will be a handful to defend against.

The new weapons of choice are both Chemical and Technology based. Relying on humans interactions to spread infections, feeding off the structures of society and our addictions to being online.

Conclusions.

We all have down time and we can use this for competitive advantage. To prepare and be ready for the recovery. This crisis has shown up our vulnerabilities and the inadequacies of the plans we had in place. Proved our preparations and infrastructure is not up to the job. Has given us many new things to think about. New priorities and vulnerabilities.

Watch for the small signs of recovery. Reach out more than ever before making new contacts and friends. Re-thing everything. Engage you staff as collective knowledge is more powerful.

Look at the fundamentals of your business model. How to go to market? The markets you serve and could serve? The cost to acquire customers and to support customers. Who are your most valued customers, and who actually pays the full margins anyway? Where are you best people deployed? Are they supporting low margin customers that moan the most?

Is this the right time to realign the cost base of the business around strong revenues from strong products and services, the strongest markets and reduce reliance on the rest?

Should you be sources new capital, seeking alliances and new partners that can share burdens and ownership. How strong is your bank as a partner? Should you be taking in new investment from private capital or VCs?

The one thing for sure is this will happen again, despite the best efforts of humankind. So what are you going to do next?

What if I told you the next crisis will be in 2023, what would you do differently? The answer is not to think it won’t happen to you, because it already has!

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