Covid-19 Business Response Framework

Critical activities that we need to focus on and act on now, just to restore our business and survive over the next weeks and months, including emphasizing the wellbeing of our people, finances, operations, and business continuity.  But at the same time, we should not ‘let this crisis go to waste’ and prepare to flourish by taking a medium to long-term view on supply chain infrastructure, customer and market dynamics, IT, and digital capability within our new reality.

You must set out a framework for your business that will help you to:

–       Act now to stabilise your business,

–       Restore your operating parameters, and prepare your business to

–       Flourish in the post-pandemic new reality.

All key activities should be examined in-depth, and strategic yet practical initiatives for these activities identified in each of the above stages, to develop a business response roadmap that will ensure a resilient and flourishing business in the ‘new reality’.

Some of the key concerns and activities requiring our immediate attention include:

• The wellbeing of our people –  the Government regulations require us to have a plan to protect our people as they return to work. Beyond the hygiene factors, how do we continue to look after and engage our teams, allocate resources, recognize and promote talent, etc.?
• Finance & Operations – liquidity, cash-flow, cost, and sustaining our critical operations are top of mind for all of us right now. Do we have a clear plan to restore all facets of our operating parameters including financial?
• Assurance – now is not the time to throw governance and proven processes and systems out the window.  Now more than ever, when we are all under severe pressure, coupled with a distributed workforce and new ways of working, we need to double-down on what has served us well and enhance our assurance activities (internal audit, risk management, compliance, etc.) to ensure transparency, accountability, and efficiency.  Have we considered governance in the new reality, including the delivery of new services and products?
• Supply Chain, Customers, and Digital are some of the key areas most impacted by our new reality. Has our organisation made a plan to confront these challenges, for example, to reduce our dependency on restrained sources or bottlenecks for our key inputs or to digitalize our channels?
• Sustainable Strategy – we need to re-visit our strategy in an expedited and efficient manner and answer the questions – what are our core strengths, what is our value proposition, what do our clients need?  We should not be throwing resources at products, services, and ideas that will end up dead in the water – even if they served us well in the past, in the old normal.  We need to focus on our strengths, unleash our resources, with a holistic view of all the risks across all our functional areas, and execute.  Have we documented and shared our strategy on this with key stakeholders?

We all realize that ‘business as usual’ in the future will be very different in many facets,  and the Covid-19 Business Response Framework will support you on the path to this future.

Seize the opportunity to transform, build resilience, and flourish in the new reality.