If the lockdown ends today, what are you going to do about reopening your business? Will you go straight to your office or shops, clean up the rooms and get going with business, or are you going to spend a week calling the public utilities such as Eko Electricity Distribution, the Water Corporation and the security service providers, to bring you their bills so you can pay and have services restored?
The answer to these questions will depend on what you did with the crisis. There is an adage that says “Never waste crisis”. This means, not only that we must use our lockdown time effectively and actively to work the crisis, taking advantage of every opportunity that it offers, but also to learn from its pains. There are many money-making and money-saving events intertwined with the crisis. Only the initiated will find them. Who could believe that Nigerians are masters of mask production?
As I believe that most of us are aware, every crisis has a twin brother which is called opportunity. Each crisis we face, no matter how bad, offers us opportunities to make progress in some aspects of life. This is why in Chinese, the same word or symbol that represents crisis also represents opportunity. So, before you know it, Wuhan, China, which gave us COVID-19 (no thanks to them), will be making progress because of it and in spite of it, while the rest of the world focuses on the problems it brought. Two different perspective but one is superior.
So what do we need to do? In addition to the tips we have shared regarding house-keeping: customer maintenance and client protection, route preservation, in the sense of supply and distribution lines protection, digital education and staff preservation and training, more still needs to be done in the areas of readiness to relaunch. The world is gradually coming to terms with the fact that our lives may not stop so that COVID-19 will pass. What if it walks slowly or is not in a hurry or outrightly refuses to pass. We are going to see businesses open even with full awareness of the risk implied.
Without doubt, almost all businesses are going to be like start-ups, not minding how long they have been in operation, when the crisis is over. The world is going through a kind of war, and when wars end, there is hardly any difference between old and new companies, rich and poor, educated and illiterate. Those who saw Cyprian Ekwensi at the end of the war, when he demonstrated that real honour lies in being able to do publicly what the public thinks is menial to you, will understand that there is no big business now. Every business is looking for survival. Everyone will sort of begin afresh. When this COVID-19 war is over your old business will have some of the traits of a start-up, and the extent of those traits could be deep or shallow, depending on what you did with the crisis. More important is how you adapt to the new normal. Don’t allow your weight to pull you down. Don’t waste the crisis. A crisis wasted is a fortune lost.
Without doubt, almost all businesses are going to be like start-ups, not minding how long they have been in operation, when the crisis is over
It is not going to be enough to be one of the trees in your former forest that will still be standing, when the guns stop booming. Many businesses will be living dead or at best scarecrows. That is how deep the pit is and that is from where you must clamber. That is also not a job your pastor or Iman will do. It is entirely up to you. So we need to do a few things that will ensure that we hit the ground running at the end of the day.
First we must understand the factors that have impacted our business, and what the new normal for our industry is. I do hope that we all understand that the new normal is not a blanket cover for everything. While certain elements of it are common to all businesses, such as digitization and social distancing, there are other industry-specific new norms that will arise. For instance, some businesses entail customers clustering together as of necessity. Their new normal in that regard differs from that of a courier firm, for instance. Some events have changed the timelines and ability of businesses to resume normal operations.
For starters, the nature and stringency of the stay-at-home order in their area of operation may differ from mine as of now. There are varying degrees of lockdown in Nigeria. The number of persons infected by COVID-19 seems to have been the basis of the severity in most cases. Currently, only two states have not reported any infections yet. Proper social distancing (minimum of six feet or two meters between individuals) within the business locations may be a challenge. Come to think of it, how many people will like to be in a crowded enclosure soon after this event? Even long after, some people will still be apprehensive. This means that our ability and level of contact with customers and other employees will likely be impaired. This is more so for businesses that involve a lot of human contact, such as spas, beauty salons, gyms and classrooms. It is going to be less so for restaurants, retail stores and others with more indirect contacts.
A certainty in all of this is that Nigeria will never be the same after this event. Every business entity will have to relearn the rules of the new normal, as if it was a start-up. It will confront serious challenges as we begin our movement along a new trajectory to recovery. And we must not forget that consumers still will have their fears as companies open their doors. This is the time to begin to take full ownership of our destiny. Operators must know how much their area of operation was impacted. We must do all these with an eye of forces that will boost sales immediately. This is also the time to be sure the water is running and the light supply has not been cut. Recheck your surroundings, just as a start-up about to open its doors to the public would.
