Corona crisis has put businesses across industries in a difficult position, worldwide. The pandemic-led economic downturn has forced strategists from all around the world to think of new and innovative tactics that can help safeguard the existence of the business. Amid the turmoil, the most effective strategy measure that has come out as an escape route to the pandemic, is cost-cutting. Businesses from each sector, be it manufacturing, retail, logistics, IT, or travel, have deployed massive cost-cutting measures in their existence-strategy amid the corona crisis.
Talking in numbers, CFOs of global business corporations have cut down on their marketing budgets by a whopping 11% in 2020. Besides, 4% less spending was done on business functions, such as procurement, R&D, and legal, in order to keep the liquidity intact.
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The Current Situation of Varied Industries Worldwide
The world is quickly moving into an economic-crisis situation that will be declared a global recession, if things continue to move the way it is, economically. Times are long gone when businesses were busy responding to the situation of short-term economic downturn, now it’s time to think of long-term solutions, and building resiliency and maturity.
Noteworthy here is that a crisis like COVID, changes customers’ loyalty and response towards a product. It impacts every kind of relationship that you have created over a number of years, ranging from customer bonds, to supplier relationships, to your relations with the business partners.
A Strong Digital Presence Can Act as a Rescue Tool
Companies with a strong digital infrastructure will quickly develop maturity and resilience, that’s a given, and hence, they are sitting at a fair advantage to others, that are not big on digital.
Amid a crisis of this magnitude, businesses with a strong digital backbone are always the successful survivors, as they keep generating productivity, provided their excellent digital infrastructure. Those, operating over cloud would be in an even better situation, financially.
COVID has put business strategy professionals across the globe, in a testing position, in regard to the justification of their skills and leadership abilities. They are, at the moment, facing a unique crisis situation that’s second to only the great recession of 2008, and hence, big pressure on their shoulders. For most small-scale firms, just surviving, and keeping the business running, is a challenge, amid the ongoing pandemic.
What, the Strategists Must be Chasing Right now, Amid the Downturn
The billion-dollar deal, at present, for business strategists across the globe, is to redirect all the resources available at their company’s disposal, to build a robust digital infrastructure. Once done with that, it almost becomes a guarantee that the business will survive for longer periods of time in the market, even if the economic situation remains the same for an extended period.
Strategists Must Embrace Crisis Situations Like These
As a top strategist, who is intellectual, innovative, skilled, and confident in his abilities, one must not take it as hard times in his professional life, instead such are the times to shine, and display your talent.
From a business viewpoint, crises like these are the best times to re-calibrate your business model and the related processes. You can put your strategists on task to prepare for an even bigger market situation comprising a severe economic downturn. This is the time to prepare for the worst.
With an ever-shortening duration between one and the other financial crisis, there exists a possibility where two or more crises hit simultaneously, while clubbing together. Preparation regarding the same is a mandate to survive.
Going Digital is Key, Amid a Pandemic
In case, a pandemic-like situation arises, the only way out is taking your business processes digital. Because, when a health hazard of this degree comes into emergence, the workforce, simply cannot commute to work, and hence, is limited to generating productivity from their respective homes.
And without a great digital infrastructure in place, your business comes to a complete halt. Even a competent business strategy professional will falter, if he has got no digital infrastructure in place to develop a strategic blueprint around. It’s like being crippled as a strategy professional, not having digital tools, and required infrastructure, at disposal.
Concluding Thoughts
To sustain a long-term existence in the times like these, the entire workforce needs to act maturely, while the leaders taking responsibility for the same. The entire strategic blueprint would need a revamping, including change in the leadership style, and the workers’ incentivisation process.
Businesses with a pre-existing remote working culture will do well in the times of a pandemic like COVID. The WFH policy works better, even in times of normalcy. Studies conducted in the past have proved that companies with a distributed workforce do better, economically, compared to those, with a majority employee-base located within a specific geographical region.
