Covid_19 The Silent Successes

The modern world has never seen anything quite like the magnitude and impact of a microscopic organism, which some continue to debate actually lives or is just a piece of biological genetic code. Live or not, a few months after it appeared, and at the time of writing there were worldwide, 14 million known infected (300k UK) with 600k Deaths (45k UK).

The UK GDP drop of 14% overall (35% in Q2 2020 alone) has been predicted, together with 9% unemployment when full effect of non furlough is released.

With this as the backdrop, how could we expect the drama to unfold across UK businesses, organisations, teams, employees, customers? Upon what could we base any measure of success in responding to this ‘unprecedented world event’ ? How would those who know us have expected us to react?

Resilience is a term which describes the capability to respond and to recover quickly following adversity. So should we have expected this pandemic? We had the pandemic of 1918 to model the impact upon and Bill Gates TED talk back in 2015 warned us it was pending. He also reassured us that the world had time to prepare.

So how should the CEO of a leading UK distribution business have prepared for this in 2015, when Bill Gates gave us the heads up? Knowing full well that as part of the UK Food Supply Chain, our customers, colleagues, our families, could not afford for us to fail in our basic purpose - Delivering the Goods. Being the last point of contact from the growing fields to shelves of stores, is arguably the least glamorous aspect of our Food Supply Chain, but arguably the most important.

So what should our focus have been?

●     Stockpiling alcohol sanitiser, face masks, disposable gloves - Toilet Rolls?

●     Should we have redesigned warehouses to ensure our employees kept distance.

●     Perhaps we could have redesigned our tractor units with perspex screens between the driver and the passenger and introduce secondary virus filter screens to the windows.

●     We could have changed our recruitment policy and only employed people of peak physical wellness.

All of the above would have helped our immediate reaction, we would have been first out of the blocks, set the early running pace and given our customers the reassurances they needed to be confident themselves, or at least have one less thing to worry about. They may have even persuaded us to share our toilet rolls!

The reality is that crises are honest, indiscriminate, relentless. They follow a predictable pattern, like a torrential downpour finding the weak points in the land, the buildings, the organisations.

For any business, any organisation, any economy, modern resilience comes from financial security. Our infrastructure is only ever as robust as the fiscal control we exert upon it.

Crises come and go, but relentless competition never stops. The way a business develops resilience in order to ensure a crisis never becomes a catastrophe is by driving for organisational excellence, a relentless pursuit of financial control. Businesses that have this, are the ones that have the time to pause, to adjust, to adapt when the flood waters come. 

Without financial resilience, the ensuing panic would have swept away our stockpiles, our perspex screens, our recruitment policies, all to be collected up by those businesses that had resilience to pause and regroup.

So, planning for a crisis starts with the 4Energies as described by Denis Treacy of Culture Compass ltd - Strategy, Organisation, Performance and Culture. In order to ensure a business is resilient, it has to have in place the structure to deliver predictable, sustainable outcomes.

In more immediate terms financial resilience, which is supported by...

●     Ensuring the capability, diversity & capacity of its leadership team.

●     Understanding and assessing every risk, every weak point the flood waters will test.

●     Robust integrated management systems, data, trending & reporting.

●     Securing capability to transact, to manage the cash, whatever the weather.

●     Investing in the relationships with its suppliers and customers.

●     Stockpiling trust and belief of its employees through training, developing, valuing and communicating.

 ….. and It does this every minute of every day.

As the floods hit, so the pause comes. Step in strong leadership, an agile and cohesive team together with external expertise. The crisis team assembles and decisions are easy and obvious. People First

●     Furlough the at risk & vulnerable and move to homeworking

●     Secure safe working by risk for all, providing clear instruction, materials and supplies for personnel, new rules by risk - Locker rooms, toilets, canteens, offices.

●     Reinforce mental health first aiders and upskill for remote working impact.

●     Envoke all appropriate - but proportionate - financial supports available VAT, PAYE, Bonus Deferral, Covenants, working with supply partners, off load short term rentals.

●     Commit to continue to operate reasonable and complementary transactions with suppliers and customers, supporting those already identified as at risk.

●     Engage with customers and confirm resilience together with capability to flex and respond to any changes in demand, or indeed services required.

The measure of success of a business is in its ability to respond in a crisis and to recover quickly from adversity - Resilience. A crisis is a rare opportunity for a well lead business to not only maintain performance vs its competitive set, but to strengthen bonds with suppliers, with customers, with employees and in the case of the Food Supply Chain, its value to the nation.

We are quite rightly proud of our medical and care professionals, who have demonstrated a capability to respond, indeed they are the envy of the world. We have clapped and cheered our Key Workers, the Supply Chain included, who have kept us fed and watered. We can even congratulate the general public for reverting to a way of living that contradicts some of the very values we live by as a nation, in order to keep others safe and well.

Behind this, may we also quietly acknowledge the Silent Successes of those who have ensured that when this crisis fades and the waters subside, there are still businesses to go back to, some, like us even stronger as a result. Like the Right Honourable Rishi Sunak MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer, who’s total focus was on life after Covid_19, and the route map to a stable 2021.

Let’s hear it for the Bean Counters..!

Author - Richard Morson, CEO Bibby Distribution.