Two years ago, I penned a piece on the fight to stay relevant as viewed through the eyes of individuals. As we age, many of us fight to have our voices heard on a variety of fronts. That piece struck a chord with readers that I hadn’t expected.
What I didn’t know was that in the spring of 2020, I’d be writing Part Two of the need to stay relevant, only this piece would focus on businesses during the time of COVID-19.
Devastation is not too strong a word to describe our current predicament. April brought with it more than 20 million job losses in America and an extraordinary unemployment rate of 14.7 percent.
The fight to stay relevant on the business front has enormous repercussions — not only how many jobs can be preserved, or how the public can be safely served, but at its core how will our lives look? As individuals plan for their next iteration, so too are businesses planning for theirs.
With this as background, I took to the phones to find out what was on managers’ minds as they began navigating these treacherous waters. While many businesses have been using videoconferencing as a way of life pre-pandemic, working predominantly from home will stay the new normal where the job allows it.
The use of a hybrid model — home and on-premise — appears to be the preferred approach for the future. Referred to as “hoteling,” offices will be equipped for transient employees who come on site sporadically. This option is viewed as maintaining the energy of collaborative teams while still controlling costs and maximizing safety.
Customers will seek new pricing models, shared business risk, guarantees of preparedness, hyper-efficient training and more. The managers I interviewed expect little leniency and know they must up their game.
As one manager philosophized, “This just makes us go where we were expecting to go, but sooner.”
Marginal or early stage initiatives will come under more scrutiny as leaders opt to double down on what they do best. Medical device companies, for example, might delay applying technologies to other diseases if the development curve is long.
Brick and mortar stores will prefer hiring professionals who excel in delivering virtual experiences. Similarly, technology companies will address smaller product gaps that allow for quicker rollout. At least for now, point-to-point solutions will get more attention over more integrated platform development.
Open-minded and open-seated teams will lead the way as we prepare to engage our post-COVID-19 world. Never has business planning bean more critical.
Jill Ebstein is the editor of the “At My Pace” series of books and the founder of Sized Right Marketing, a Newton consulting firm. She wrote this for InsideSources.com.
