Life after COVID-19

What does the "new normal” look like?

There is no question that COVID-19 will have a deep and lasting effect on the way business is conducted worldwide, but what might be different in this new era and how might we adjust? Right now, there is still a lot of nervousness and uncertainty (especially with the potential prospect of a ‘second wave’), but we can still take action to position our business to make the best of things. Below are some thoughts on what might happen and how to make the transition effectively.

Learn the lessons COVID-19 has taught us

Hindsight, as they say, is 20-20 so we might as well look into the rear-view mirror and identify those vulnerable areas that tripped us up when COVID-19 hit. Businesses in the travel and hospitality sectors have undoubtedly done it exceptionally tough, but look too at how some cafes have pivoted to increase their takeaway offerings (I know of one local café business whose revenue has actually increased since the restrictions on café dining were imposed) and/or provide new or increased delivery services instead. A key lesson to be learnt here is to look at your business not in terms of the products or services it provides but rather the actual benefits that your customers derive from the knowledge, skills and expertise that your business possesses and how you can deliver your offering in new ways and open new markets. As Charles Darwin once said: “it is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”.

Greater application of risk management

I have a saying that I often use in business: “bad businesses react, good businesses measure and manage, great businesses predict”. Prediction is not a black art, it comes from putting some dedicated time aside to seriously looking at what might happen down the line either based upon what has occurred in the past or through a critical analysis of what might happen in the future with respect to what the business is trying to achieve. Now I am not suggesting that we could necessarily have predicted the advent of COVID-19 (although some such as Bill Gates actually did, see gatesnotes.com/Health/We-Are-Not-Ready-for-the-Next-Epidemic, but by considering possible disruptions to what might otherwise be seen as “normal business” may have resulted in some mitigation strategies and contingencies that just might have been applicable to the current situation as well. Mitigating risk is not hard to do and does not need not consume a huge amount of time (it is a classic area where the 80/20 rule applies, i.e. identity 80% of the risks in 20% of the time), but it does require a disciplined approach so that these are reviewed on a periodic basis.

Increased use of remote working

From schools to even large businesses, for many of us over the past couple of months working from home has become the norm. I can recall this being discussed as a possible option decades ago but in the past it has tended to be resisted for two key reasons:

1. Trust. There was an inherent belief that if staff worked from home they would be subject to the distraction that home comforts might provide and hence productivity would drop but in reality the reverse is probably true since the lack of having travel meant more time could be spent working and actually less interruptions from co-workers.

2. Difficulty of communication. The massive increase in the use of Zoom and other online visual communication mechanisms has considerably reduced this as a reason to not work from home.

With these two myths having now been pretty well exploded afr.com/work-and-careers/careers/it-s-more-productive-to-work-from-home-20200401-p54fwc. I believe that remote working will become far more widespread, albeit not to the degree that it currently exists. There is another important factor at play here as well. There has been much made of the improvements to our environment since COVID-19 hit: air quality is improving pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/covid-19-is-an-opportunity-to-reset-our-environmental-future and for first time in decades the Himalayas are now visible from parts of India as pollution levels have dropped abc.net.au/news/2020-04-09/himalayas-visible-india-pollution/12136856 and many of us are far more conscious now of the potential for continuing to improve our environment by travelling less.

Increased utilisation of Australian businesses and resources

Notwithstanding the increased difficulty in the import and export of goods with China, the recent imposition of higher tariffs on Australian exports in response to our justifiably correct push for a formal and objective inquiry into how the virus started will have undermined trust in China as a reliable trading partner. Combine this with the increasing costs of goods manufactured in China as well and active consideration of alternatives should occur more frequently. Cost will always be a factor, but the quality and reliability of Australian-made products should I hope lead us to a more “buy local” approach which will benefit all businesses. We are indeed the “Lucky Country”, so let’s make better use of what we have been naturally endowed with to create a more stable and reliable supplier network.

Significant growth

Much in the same way that our forests can quickly regrow and re-establish after a bushfire, so too can our economy revive after a serious downturn. In fact, according to Dimensional Fund Advisors, market research looking at stock market returns over the period July 1926 – December 2019 show that after a market downturn of 10%, 15% and 20%, there are sustained gains of around 10% or more in each of the following 1, 3 and 5 year periods.

Whilst this is not to say that there will be an immediate snap-back (countries are by and large still very wary of international travel which is unlikely to recover until well into 2021), an easing of constraints will provide great opportunities for many Australian businesses as indicated above.  The ones that will do best out of this are the ones that have been able to ride out the difficult period since March, pivoted effectively where necessary, been able to retain key staff (and hence knowledge, expertise and loyalty) and have effectively used this enforced “pause” to reimagine the future and actively plan their way out of the pandemic.  As Winston Churchill said” “He who fails to plan is planning to fail”.

Ian Ash ACC, AInstIB

Managing Director OrgMent Talent Solutions - www.omtalent.com.au