Article originally published at Forbes on Jun 12, 2020.
"This will begin to make things right."
This is how The Force Awakens begins as Lor San Tekka hands over a map to Poe Dameron. And that's the mindset business leaders should have as they get their businesses ready for the future.
In case you are still wondering how it might be possible to have this optimism while dealing with present-day challenges, let me offer another analogy. As fans of auto-racing know well, winners and losers are decided during crashes. How a driver recovers from and navigates around a crash (and debris) determines his or her position on the final leaderboard. This pandemic is no less than a massive crash. And crises like these offer unprecedented opportunities for companies to move up the leaderboard within their space. Historically, according to the Boston Consulting Group, migration into and out of the Fortune 500 list has been greater during times of crisis.
You might wonder, "Why now?" Keep in mind that the best time for a hunter to sharpen her spear or for a fisherman to mend his nets is when the season is lean or weather unfavorable. This is the perfect time for you and your team to get fully geared up for the new season.
If you are like most business leaders, you probably try to base your decisions on facts and data. However, you may find that there are far too many unknowns in front of you. Let that not deter you. Getting milestones precisely right is not nearly as important as getting the vital trends directionally right.
There are three broad categories that each business leader should re-examine for the future — customers, processes and organization.
Customers
1. Customer Value: If you have been thinking of your typical or average customer, a crisis may be the time to ditch that notion. Instead, now may be the time to identify your ideal market segments that you can and want to serve and create ideal customer profiles and personas for each of the chosen segments.
Once you have identified your segments and ideal customers, determine the best channels to serve them. Keep your customers' preferences in mind. For example, 2015 Accenture research (via Business Wire) found that more than half of drivers surveyed said they want the auto industry to improve online channels, and 75% of buyers would consider making an entire car purchase online.
2. Homeward Bound (Customers): Your customers are likely to be rethinking their supply chains and suppliers. This is especially true in manufacturing. I think it's very likely that they will prefer sourcing from:
• Home (i.e., within the country)
• Closer to home (i.e., a neighboring country)
• What feels like home (i.e., countries that are culturally similar to their home country)
This is not to say that countries like China are going to go out of business. But the trend to go overseas to save a buck is getting reversed.
3. Privacy Versus Personalization: Over the past decade or so, we as consumers have bounced between two extremes of giving up our information unwittingly to following strict regulations governments imposed on companies. With crises like the pandemic and the need for better public health, we are likely to see a more reasonable balance between privacy and personalization. People may be more willing to give up their privacy provided that companies can offer demonstrable value in return.
Processes
1. Digital Transformation: This phrase has been used for at least 20 years. A few companies have transformed themselves to become digital heroes; many have been satisfied to have it as an evergreen mantra on paper year after year. If we needed a nudge to finally get it done and make it real, we all got it squarely between the eyes. As inspiration, you may consider that the Chinese internet behemoth Alibaba reportedly got a significant boost during the SARS epidemic.
2. Automation: Whether in sales, marketing or operations, it's time to look for opportunities to automate processes. Brookings Institute recently explained that job loss in "automatable" positions increases during recessionary times, as seen in the last three recessions. It also estimated in 2019 that one-quarter of the jobs in the U.S. could see 70% of their tasks automated.
3. Homeward Bound (Supply Chain): Just as with your customers, you may want to look at your own supply chain and see what you need to bring:
• Home
• Closer to home
• From what feels like home
You should weigh any costs savings from overseas against the potential risk of disruption and managing in the post-pandemic, limited-air-travel era.
Organization
1. Work From Home (WFH): After the initial challenges of adjusting to WFH, many advantages have emerged that are significant and can be long-lasting. For example, companies' talent pool is no longer limited by commuting distance. Globalization may have been put on pause, but the "local" footprint has expanded significantly. The secret of higher productivity (which could be due to more efficiency, higher employee satisfaction, smaller office spaces, etc.) associated with WFH is now less of a secret. A crisis is the time to reexamine the traditional office and adjust to monetize this productivity.
2. Resilience And Agility: In a world that is likely to have many more "unknowns" than usual, the ability to predict correctly is often less useful than the ability to adjust and adapt. (Salute Charles Darwin!) This is the time to drive this new mindset at all levels of the organization and restructure your thinking appropriately.
3. Bias Toward Variable Costs: As a partner at a company that provides outsourced CMO services, I've found that a quick path to organizational agility comes from shifting more of your costs to "variable" ones. Selective outsourcing of certain functions (including significant ones like marketing, finance and accounting) can help bring flexibility and also make available new, higher-level talent that is usually not accessible to small and mid-sized companies as full-time hires.
All in all, when the pandemic pandemonium is behind us, don't be surprised if you, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, realize you're "not in Kansas anymore."
For more advice on developing a cohesive, effective marketing strategy, you can find Lies, Damned Lies, and Marketing on Amazon.
Atul Minocha is a partner at Chief Outsiders, a marketing consulting firm that helps CEOs accelerate growth through strategic planning, customer insight, and disciplined execution of well-crafted marketing plans. With experience in startups and Fortune 500 companies like Honeywell, Kodak, and Toyota, Atul works in a wide range of industries, from automotive and healthcare to industrial goods and technology. Atul has a degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and an MBA from Yale University. He is a professor at the Hult International Business School, a mentor and an angel investor with Sierra Angels, a Vistage speaker, and a Forbes contributor.