The present pandemic may not have been our best wish for 2020. It was a terrible gift from whoever it was that manufactured and unleashed it upon us. Bad as it may be, there is nothing in this world that is patently bad. Without exception, there is always something good about every situation.
Last week, I said something to the effect that even when a product is most successfully launched, it could still fail. When that happens, those impacted naturally feel bad. However, the failure of a product could teach us great lessons that could inform the next generation of innovative products. There is therefore nothing that is without a bright side. As Christians should recall, the Scriptures say that God made them male and female. The laws of Physics also tell us that action and reaction are equal and opposite. There are years of plenty and those of adversity. Indeed, the world is naturally dualistic, permitting, almost always, the beneficial coexistence of phenomena that are often antagonistic.
Opulent Victoria Island could hardly exist without the squalor that used to be known as Maroko. The two communities had a symbiotic relationship, in the sense that the rich in the former needed the services of the artisan in the latter but opposed its existence. Maroko eventually lost its life to the internecine feud between the two neighborhoods. While it lasted, the bad thing was that Maroko provided services that were vital to the survival of Victoria Island, including shoe-shiners, tailors and such. There are always two sides to a coin, a head and a tail. There is also always a fair side and a dark side of every event and our duty is to find the fair side. The current pandemic is not an exception. It therefore follows that one of the key ingredients for survival at this time, and thriving thereafter, is the ability to see and recognize the fair side of the pandemic and work it.
If you run a business (especially in the MSME sector), and cannot point to what you have done differently that has made you hopeful that things are not going to get better, then you need to do more. The preparation for the next season of plenty is already in high gear elsewhere. Over the past several weeks of lockdown, some have discovered many cost-saving ways of doing things that they are grateful about. For instance, the resort to online activity has slashed corporate travel costs in half. If anyone has not noticed this, then something is going wrong in their shops. Not only should we be pointing to concrete action plans for the next phase of our businesses, we should actually have alternative business ideas now lining up.
Anything short of that would suggest that one has been going through this crisis without much observation or with scant attention to developments. Some new business ideas have come ashore and people are already trying some out on a pilot basis. Any entrepreneur that is unaware of these events is like a pastor who claims that God has called him when indeed, he called himself. He probably heard his own voice and said the Lord had spoken. While there is no way to avoid the massive hardship that is ahead, there are good things that await survivors. Finding them is the task of your strategists.
The pandemic may be a crisis and an opportunity commingled but it is also an invitation to reinvent oneself or be removed. Only those who transform themselves to exploit the opportunities will remain. However, this ability to exploit will call for both internal and external reforms process, including technological adaptation
From the midst of the pandemic, two clear words have resounded very loudly, for those who are paying attention. The clear words are: Crisis and Opportunity. Those words are ringing out to businesses, individuals and corporate entities, to be aware that a new era is breaking in business. For the agile organisation, the new era begins with a clear understanding that the crisis at hand could wipe out, not just a lot of businesses but also their owners. The implication is that both individuals and businesses must do all that they can to survive the pandemic. While individuals must strictly adhere to the safety guidelines issued by the NCDC, companies must take a variety of steps, some of which we had discussed in earlier editions of this column, not just to survive, but to be able to run at the gun. An important underlying principle that would guide corporate survival action is the understanding that the pandemic will pass and prosperity will return at the end of it. This principle is anchored on the indubitable fact that every crisis brings something good but only the survivors can taste of it.
The fact that the same word or symbol represents both crisis and opportunity in Chinese is a well-canvassed and discussed motivational topic. Despite some errors in the interpretation of the symbol, the concept of crisis and opportunity being kindred spirits is now internalised. Those going through a crisis must therefore have deeper reflection on its connection to opportunity and prosperity, and be on the lookout.
It follows that there is always a price tag (apologies to James Hardly Chase), the famous British novelist. The pandemic may be a crisis and an opportunity commingled but it is also an invitation to reinvent oneself or be removed. Only those who transform themselves to exploit the opportunities will remain. However, this ability to exploit will call for both internal and external reforms processes, including technological adaptation. The reforms will not be limited to operational modalities but would involve much more, including a review of the entire purpose and mission of the entity. The role of technology in the coming era is enormous and pervasive. It will not be an optional but a compulsory component of the new driving forces of business.
Anyone leading a business, whether as an entrepreneur or a professional manager, that is yet to see the thin lines that would define the coming era in business, especially in the area of technology, should be genuinely worried. Smart business people are using the lockdown to improve their skills. Last week I said we should all seek our own Blue Oceans and aspire to build our own monopolies. It is trite that a well-trodden part leads to no fortune. Only a monopoly, used here to encompass new ideas, improvement to existing technologies or completely new ones, can bring uncontested fortune. One good thing about the pandemic is that it came early enough; just before anyone began the implementation of their 2020 budgets. It destroyed all assumptions behind our budgets and plan. We can therefore make new ones based on better insights.
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