It’s amazing how quickly things can change, throwing off the most confident expectations and making the most thorough plans useless.  Scenarios we thought likely only a couple months ago have been rendered impossible as a new reality sets in.

Just like the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001 and the mortgage crash of 2008, we are now in the middle of a new worldwide crisis.  This time it’s a virus pandemic, threatening to shut down entire sectors of our economy and wreaking havoc across the board.

For nearly all of us, 2020 isn’t so clear any more.  For many businesses, the strategy is now much less about growth and more about staying alive through a dangerous time of unknown duration.  For enterprises fortunate enough to be able to continue operations and cover costs in the meantime, there is enough disruption to force reconsideration of business models, at least for the next few months.

How do you plan (or re-plan) in these highly uncertain times?  I have no magic pill that will give you answers in the midst of such an unclear economic environment.  But maybe I can offer some encouragement and perhaps prompt your creative planning thinking a bit.

See the crisis – and how to get through it – in phases.  And plan for all phases now.

• Survival: In the short term, what can you do to reduce risk and costs? Are there ways to reduce costs to conserve cash without diminishing your capacity to recover?  Could some products or services be discontinued?  What non-essential activities and projects can be postponed?
• Adaptation: In the near intermediate term, flexibility is key. What substitutes are available for those business processes that need to continue? In what new ways can you deliver your products or services that will better enable you to meet ongoing demand?  Are there new opportunities in your traditional markets, or in related markets, for which you could quickly deliver new products or services?  What mutually beneficial alliances are worth implementing now?
• Recovery: In the longer intermediate term, what do you need to put in place to be able to supply your customers when pent-up demand begins to appear? Where will the increase in demand happen first and how can you best position your company to meet demand?
• Growth: In the long run, this temporary disruption might also disrupt the market landscape in some significant and permanent ways. As you take stock of your company’s strengths and monitor your markets, how can your organization be ready to thrive for the long term?  What new markets, and opportunities for new products and services, should you begin to target?  What new delivery mechanisms, technologies, skillsets, alliances, etc. should you consider?

What techniques can help you through this?  Apply what you’ve already learned through your career and life experience.

• Strengthen emotional intelligence: Strong EI promotes adaptability to change, resilience and realistic optimism, and promotes innovation and creativity. It also helps leaders to communicate well, reducing organizational stress and inspiring the team to keep their focus on the vision.
• Leverage information and analytics: It may not immediately be obvious, but this is the time to calmly analyze your operations, your markets and customers, the profitability of your products and services, even your competition (and who or what could become your competition). Integrate data from disparate systems to get better insights.  Good analytics can uncover opportunities you didn’t see before, including some new ones made possible by the current crisis.
• Do scenario planning: Brainstorm the possibilities. This time you may need to be more creative and consider a wider range of possibilities.  Tap into ideas from people in marketing, operations and other aspects of the business, and even from outside the company walls.  Of course, there will be a little more guesswork and speculation when the environment is highly uncertain, but scenario planning can bring to light new opportunities and creative options for re-deploying resources.
• Employ flexible systems: Modern software applications can help you plan multiple scenarios and integrate operational plans with financial outcomes. Many of Analysis Team’s clients have purpose-built planning applications such as Oracle’s Hyperion Planning or EPM Cloud, or Adaptive Insights.  Oracle Essbase is a widely-deployed modeling tool used by Finance departments that offers a high degree of flexibility for scenario planning and works very well with Excel.  Other tools are out there and more accessible than ever before.

We’re likely to go through a few more weeks of extreme social distancing that will keep the overall economy cool in the meantime.  But all the personal isolation is helping to slow down virus transmission, more COVID-19 testing is starting to happen, and new treatments are being tested and will be available soon.  Economic recovery feels like a long way off but when it happens it will probably be fast, as we’re now seeing in the country where the virus originated in December.

Stay safe, and be nimble.  Keep calm and plan on.  Find and address current opportunities and get ready now for the recovery … and return to growth!