For some businesses, the COVID pandemic has been a veritable ‘gold-mine’ of opportunities and growth. However, for many others it’s been extremely challenging and they’re struggling to see the path ahead clearly. For many there’s a general feeling of weariness (‘Covid-fatigue’), coupled with great uncertainty about the future.

  • How have our customers’ needs changed?
  • Do we still have the right offering for customers?
  • Where will we be working?
  • How will we be working?
  • How should we be working?

 

There is great talk about flexible working becoming the ‘norm’ rather than the exception. “All well and good”, some say. “About time” say others, but are our businesses ready to tackle the big questions posed by flexible working?

Are we ready to give employees more autonomy and trust them to deliver?

  • Do our managers have the skills to manage and motivate people working remotely?
  • Do we have onboarding, training and development processes to ensure that less experienced employees feel supported and engaged?

From a commercial standpoint, other key questions we should be asking ourselves are:

  • Is everyone within our organisation clear on the challenges our existing (and potential) external customers face resulting from the COVID pandemic?
  • Do we have the right procedures and approaches to enable us to understand and anticipate how our existing (and potential) customers’ needs may have changed or are changing?
  • Are we all clear about how we can differentiate ourselves from our competition and what we need to do to stay ahead with new and existing customers?

In a previous article, we spoke about the importance of business agility; the ability to adapt quickly and decisively, and in response to fast-changing customer needs and expectations. As a business, are you taking a systematic look at how to keep the ‘best’ learnings from the pandemic and then deliberately making choices and taking actions to make you more agile and more resilient?

In light of the need for businesses to bounce back strongly, at Opsis we’ve been researching the key issues facing our clients. What we’ve found is that there are two key pillars:

  • Commercial and operational renewal and resilience
  • The morale, wellbeing and leadership of employees

Focusing on these two pillars, and acknowledging that the Covid pandemic has produced some seismic shifts in the world we operate in, we’ve developed the RRR programme.

 

Aimed at senior business leaders, the RRR programme is a series of short (typically 4 hour long) online, inter-connected workshops which will enable leaders to take a structured review of the challenges facing their business and develop tangible actions to address them.

The workshops follow a consistent and well-proven approach.

Reflection:

  • Taking the opportunity to reflect on What Does Good Look Like (WDGLL)
  • Agreeing on a common vision for the (new) future, with each workshop adding ‘pieces of the jigsaw’ to build a clear picture of the ‘new’ transformed business
  • Reflecting (openly and honestly) on where their business is now

Renew:

  • Starting to identify the key gaps between the Future State and the Current State
  • Prioritising the key tangible actions that need to be taken to address those gaps
  • Start to ‘flesh out’ the key elements of change plans that need to be executed to:
  • Build the commercial and operational resilience of the business
  • Address the morale, wellbeing and leadership of employees

Refresh:

  • Produce detailed and highly actionable plans that will:
    • Ensure the business is better able to deliver an exceptional Customer Experience to both existing and new customers
    • Energise and empower commercial operations to actively seek out new-new business
    • Re-energise, motivate and enthuse ‘Covid-fatigued’ employees
    • Address the management and leadership practices required to get the most from employees working flexibly

Designed to be run virtually, each workshop is flexible and highly interactive. To ensure that time spent in the actual workshops is as productive as possible, candidates will be expected to carry out pre-work before each one.

As with all Opsis Consulting workshops and programmes, the focus is on unique, practical, deliverable and actionable outputs that will result in tangible results. With over 27 years of experience, helping businesses and business leaders, we know what works and what doesn’t. Our highly experienced consultants are also available for one-to-one coaching and implementation support on all of the topics covered in the RRR programme.

And finally, how do you fancy doing a short self-audit to assess your business resilience?

Take a look at the following ten statements, then openly and honestly score your organisation (out of 10) against each statement. Unless you’re scoring 9+ on each of them we think you need to give us a call!

Email us at info@opsisconsulting.com or call DavidWilliams on 07525 363961

Resulting from our COVID pandemic experiences so far…   

Current Score

0-10

1.     Our Leadership and Management team are clear about and can describe the challenges our staff face.

 

2.     We are all clear of the challenges our existing external customers face and how we can help then to meet these challenges.

 

3.     We are all clear about the types of New customers we want to win and why? (we understand their ‘profile`).

 

4.     We are all clear about the effect working remotely has had and is having on staff and we take the necessary steps to be flexible in our approach wherever possible.

 

5.     Our Leadership & Management team set aside allocated time to reinforce, with our staff, the importance of creating effective and memorable Customer Experiences to futureproof our customer base.

 

6.     We are all clear about the key changes to our business environment and what we need to do to maximise our effectiveness.

 

7.     We are all clear about the strategies required to energise, empower and increase the resilience of our staff to meet the new challenges ahead.

 

8.     We have thoroughly researched and acted upon the key needs of our staff to influence a motivating, ‘can do’ working environment.

 

9.     Our internal resources are all effectively aligned towards delivering successful customer outcomes – internally and externally.

 

10.  We have developed a detailed vision of the key changes we need to make and have stepped plans in place to achieve this vision which will enable our organisation to thrive.

 

 

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