As a leader, what should you be focusing on during COVID-19

Hi Liz - great question and I imagine one that many will be considering.

I would suggest moving the business to a services based entity would work. IE use suppliers for various functions rather than holding a huge permanent workforce.

Following both 2001 and 2008 the agile businesses were the 'winners'. Those with large war chests didn't necessarily survive long term because they couldn't adapt.

Manage costs and expectations of others. Negotiate well but not taking 'advantage' of the situation. Write shorter contracts to stay agile.

Good luck! 

Hi Liz

I have a range of SMEs as clients so this week I published a White Paper that talks to the specific issues facing Entrepreneurs.   It covers everything from maintaining your culture even though your team are probably remote working to looking at your P&L and making the right finance decisions.   The link to the paper is below.   Let me know if you need to know something more specific:

Weathering The Storm: COVID19 and your Business

Thanks

Sean

Liz, this is a great question.  It's one that most businesses should ask themselves.

When conditions change so dramatically many of the factors that we used to make our decisions are suddenly out-of-date.

This means that returning to basics and reviewing them is a good starting point.

1. Analyse the current market.  

 - How has customer behaviour changed?

 - Where has customer spend moved to?

 - What are your customers doing now?

 - What are their current customer needs?

 - Who can you still serve?

 - Are there new customer types that you can now serve?

2. Adjust your cash flow forecast

If you're still working to the same assumptions about your income as you were before the pandemic, then you'll find that you're not getting the results that you expected.

Review your cash flow forecast and update your figures so that they match the current reality.

When that is done there is a key question.  Is your business still making more money than it is spending?

Review your operating model

Do a sufficient volume of customers still spend money with your company?

If yes, then what proportion of the applicable market is that?  (see step no.1)

Adjust your strategies to match to attract as much as possible.  

If no, then refer to step no.1 and see where and how customers are spending their money.  Can you adjust to serve a sufficient number of these customers to survive or even capitalise on this shift?

Examples: 

Supermarkets capitalised by increasing their capability to deliver.  Customer spending had already significantly increased to supermarkets causing a strain on supply chains.

Passenger airlines have seen a decrease in numbers.  Many have adjusted to carry more cargo to offset some of the decline.  

Restaurants have employed a model based on delivery rather than dining in.  Food spending has also shifted to supermarkets.

Officed-based service companies have shifted to allowing employees to work from home.

DIY and Trades Professionals have seen increases as homeowners focus on home-improvement due to spending more time at home.

Meetings and networking have been replaced by Zoom, Skype  and other online platforms.  Their adoption has increased vastly beyond their previous projections.

There are many other positive examples.

Adjust to survive and maybe even thrive by increasing the volume of customers that you can now serve.  You'll get what you aim for.

Use data to inform decisions

This new reality and the market conditions that go with it are here to stay for the foreseeable future.  We have had 6 months of data to build our new commercial models to cater to the current needs and habits of our target customers.

There will be some tough choices, but the data will point the way.

Create a central and clear list of priorities

Centrally set out a clear set of priorities, and locally implement them with a high degree of local manager autonomy. In a dynamic situation, overly centralizing decision making hobbles the organization’s ability to respond quickly and effectively. Effective leaders empower managers to make the best decisions they can, bearing in mind a clear set of enterprise priorities, such as keeping employees safe and behaving ethically toward customers. Clear thresholds should be put in place for when a local manager needs to ask for authorization from the center.

Instead of a clear, hierarchical list of  [removed]  mediocre leaders set out a buffet of priorities, all of which seem to be equal. It looks something like: “In this time of need, we need to be efficient, effective, innovative, secure, fast, agile and high quality.” The worst situations are where leaders provide unclear and contradictory priorities to their people.