Our New Normal

As a new pathogen, COVID-19 presents a tremendous number of unknowns, causing us to struggle with an appropriate level of response and an effective plan. Globally, our governments face the dilemma of how to mitigate the short term risk to the population while, at the same time, not causing long term damage to the economy. Given this situation, we can expect a prolonged series of experimental measures and policies regarding freedom of movement, social distancing, the levels of testing, tracking and tracing, etc.

As our governments continue to cycle through short term changes in rules and regulations, fundamental changes are occurring in our own long term behaviors and habits. These changes will have a profound impact on the way markets act and businesses are run once the pandemic ends. As such, it is imperative that enterprises review their short, medium and long term plans and alter them accordingly. These changes apply at both the operational and strategic levels.

Business Pivot

A Few Imperatives

Speed: COVID-19 taught us this lesson clearly. We went from our previous existence to our new normal in under a month. Time is of the essence and it is vital that you build the capability into your organization to react quickly and effectively to any threat or opportunity before it is too late.

Flexibility: We don’t expect our current levels of volatility and uncertainty to diminish any time soon. In fact, under the new normal, we anticipate these situations to continue ramping-up. The only way to manage these conditions is to build flexibility into your organization starting with your operational processes and key people.

Focus: Simply reacting to changes as they arise will not allow you to move forward. You need to have clarity and agreement of where you are going (we call this your North Star) and you need to build a roadmap of how to get there. Your strategies and plans may need to be adapted given the changing conditions. However, it is key that everyone knows the overall direction where you are heading and the general path of how to get there.

Getting Started

Starting from a purely defense mode of operation, you have to transition playing offense. To complete this shift, you will need to complete these initial tasks: Optimize Your Remote Working Capabilities, Develop Your Internal Competencies and Create Your Roadmap.

Optimize Your Remote Working Capabilities: Identify and deploy the Tools, Processes & Methodologies that allow individual employees and internal teams to work effectively from afar. This capability is an essential part of building flexibility and speed into your organization. Most companies have managed to transition to working remotely, however there still remains a lot of room for improvement.

Develop Your Internal Capabilities: Instruct and practice the tools and techniques of project sprints and scrums. These application based modules should also be backed-up with sessions for developing the individual behaviours and skills within your selected employees to ensure effective execution. Many of the application based modules are already on-line and all the sprints and scrum meetings and work are performed on-line. In our experience, it is best to assign a coach to each project sprint until the team members garner enough experience to run the tools and processes themselves.

Create Your Roadmap In view of the current situation and likely market evolution over the next 2 to 3 years, you need to start reviewing your business direction and core strategies. Revise them and create contingency plans in view of the changing business dynamic and high level of uncertainty. Once they are defined, be sure to share them throughout the organization.

Establishing Your Growth Roadmap

Assess the impact

Develop the strategy

Go on the offensive

Execute the plan

Ask the hard questions:

What is the Low Touch

economy, and how could it impact your industry and more specifically, your company?

Monitor Market Dynamics:

Establish the core factors and the measurement criteria to monitor and track developments to stay ahead of the trends

Establish Growth Strategy: How can you grow in the Low Touch economy, and outperform competitors?

Pivot your portfolio:

How should you repurpose your investments to the right growth initiatives?

Develop Opportunities Pipeline: Develop a short-term pipeline of new business opportunities, driven by new customer behaviour

Develop Acquisition & Networking Roadmap: Scan for inorganic growth
opportunities

Run new business sprints: Run weekly sprints.

Launch new proposition or business model: Design, develop, and launch a
new proposition to market

Recruit growth team: Hire on-demand reinforcements
for your teams and/or expand
your network of business partners

Building Blocks to Your Future

In his interview on CNBC on March 24 th 2020, Kevin Sneader Global Managing Partner of The McKinsey & Company claims: “Nothing is going to be the same. This is the new normal, a different way of operating … If it’s not going back to the way it was before, what is the next normal? What’s the way in which we are going to have to operate?”

Our key insight is that the changes you are establishing in your organization today are not only helping you to resolve your short term challenges, they serve as the building blocks for the way you will run your company in the future.

So, in this time of COVID-19, you are starting down a road you will be following for years to come. Given the importance of this step, we recommend that you begin this process slowly, with a selected group of employees. You need to give them time to practice and to customize your processes, tools and techniques that best suit your culture and business needs. Once a customized system has been established and your teams have successfully completed an initial set of priority projects, then you can expand the approach to the remainder of your organization.

Your Initial Resources

We recommend that you start with three levels of employees, each level with its own defined roles and set of responsibilities.

Leaders and Key Functional Heads: This first level consists of the top leadership and the key functional heads. This cohort will have the responsibility for defining the way forward and prioritizing the tasks to be completed. These obligations include:

In the short term, over the next 1 to 4 months, ensure that your organization is able to operate effectively
In the mid-term, over the next 5 to 10 months, oversee your organization’s recovery plan so it can operate effectively when the markets are reestablished
In the long term, from the next year onwards, develop your direction and strategic roadmap for growth

Key Functional Heads and Project Leaders: This second level is responsible for the detailed planning and monitoring of the progress made during the plans’ implementation. This group of managers have control over the operational aspects of the team projects.

Project Leaders and Talent Pool: This third level is responsible for executing all the priority projects and for delivering the desired results. The Project Leaders should be selected from the ranks of your organization’s current project managers. They will first be trained in the tools and techniques for running sprints which are the backbone of agile organizations. The project team members themselves should be selected from your organization’s talent pool. These employees offer underlying qualities that are important to achieving the flexibility, speed and focus you require for your organization to be successful in the long run.

The diagram below illustrates the 3 levels of resources and their roles with the short, medium and
long term transformation objectives.

Working Together to Respond to Change

2. Mid Term Mitigation:

Initiate Recovery Plans

3. Long Term Growth:

Plan/Revise & Execute
Strategic Roadmap

1

2

3

2

3

Senior Leaders &
Department Heads

Define Strategy
& Priorities

Department Heads &
Project Leaders

Define Projects
& Outcomes

Project Leaders &
Talent Pool

Execute Projects &
Deliver Results

1. Short Term Defensive:

Optimize Current Operations

Where We Can Help

We are presently interacting with clients in the following areas

Identifying their organizational imperatives
Guiding the execution of short term defensive tactics
Assisting in formulating their recovery plans
Facilitating the process to develop their long term growth roadmaps
Coaching project teams’ sprints and scrums
Monitoring progress on an on-going basis

Depending on our client’s specific set of needs, our mandates vary from focusing on one area only, all the way to deploying our full suite of services.

OSR

Honing Change