Every successful business, every successful leader, every successful manager has since time immemorial, had to learn to adapt to the ever-changing demands of doing business. We’ve had to learn to either anticipate or predict changes before they occur or recognise important trends and developments as they emerge. Keeping our eyes and ears open at all times and frequently checking-in with customers to keep abreast of their needs and concerns and ensuring that we are exceeding customer expectations. Not just open for business, but open to change.
The global Covid-19 pandemic has, just like the wars and pandemics of the past, accelerated the rate of change both in society at large and in the business world. At present, there appear to be some obvious ‘winners’ e.g. manufacturers of PPE, digital communications platforms and on-line retailers, and some obvious ‘losers’ e.g. the hospitality industry, travel firms, bricks and mortar retailers. However, in the longer-term, it remains to be seen which business sectors and which players will be ‘winners’ and ‘losers’.
As suggested above, we believe that while dramatic and unprecedented, the lasting impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on businesses will depend on how well we adapt to simply a ‘different kind of difficult’. Yes, there are some things we can’t predict and some that we can’t change but there’s a whole lot that (as businesses) we can and should do!
At Opsis we believe there is no better time than NOW to:
REFLECT on how:
- well we are managing, leading and motivating our key asset – our people
- well we are growing and retaining our existing customers
RENEW what we do:
- to improve our customer-centricity and be more agile
- to adapt our leadership and people management styles to better suit the new realities of increasingly ‘virtual’ customers and employees
RESET how we:
- structure ourselves to build on existing business and go after new business
- think about, adapt to and thrive in, an increasingly unpredictable world
- move from just coping, to truly performing