Re-engineering the business to adapt to Covid-19

Covid-19 pandemic caught almost every business off-guard. Most have never experienced anything like COVID-19 ever before. Now that we have been hit, we should not cry over spilt milk but re-calibrate, remodel and re-strategise the business to sustainably keep forging ahead. In business, change is unavoidable and the businesses that adapt to change are more likely to win. Like what Charles Darwin said – “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

What has the Covid-19 pandemic done to the business?

Covid-19 pandemic came in hard and induced global lock-downs that have drastically halted business. With such global statistics, there will have been changes to your business system and if there has not been – then this may be a finding of non-conformance. Many businesses that may have monopolised their industries and inducted in comfort zones, now feel that the scale and complexity of their supply chains are greater than they originally understood. This wake-up call has and will lead companies to adopt fairly radical changes, including increasing production volumes and investing in increased capacity or redundancy (as opposed to just-in-time production), automation, or distribution production techniques such as 3-D printing of key products or components. This business philosophy is called Supply Chain (in)visibility. Businesses have rushed to invest in infrastructure renovations – erecting sanitising tunnels at entry points, workstation spacing and some built sneeze shields at serving points. The return on investment to such capital projects is a story for another day. World over, institutions are cutting down on staff numbers as the business cannot afford them on-board, with some resorting to employee bridging; introduced flexible working from home, reducing operating capacity – though businesses disregard the opportunity costs associated; and in some extreme cases shutdown operations indefinitely. Those with resources have implemented product or service diversification to improve revenue streams and spread the costs, introduced dedicated staff transport services to minimise risk of spread Covid-19 in public transport; and or changed process(es) by adding or removing an activity to comply with national regulations e.g. mandatory temperature monitoring or sanitisation which comes at a cost of increasing queuing time, increasing costs in purchasing hand sanitising agent or deploying a dedicated employee on payroll to spend the day checking temperature and sanitising persons. Tech savvy systems have embraced industry 4.0 concepts with more restaurants offering a takeaway and delivery service, kerbside collections, emergence of online gym sessions and radio school lessons.

So how can the business re-engineer its system?

Several businesses in different industries daily and not one is carrying on without some form of change. In managing such changes, the business is required to consider Risk and Opportunity by conducting a Failure Mode and Effect Analysis on the system with a view to evidently outline how to reduce unwanted effects and increase success of affects you do want. It is important to show, based on the identified risks and opportunity, how the business will integrate and implement these into the existing management system. The leadership focus lies on how the risks or opportunities have been identified, evaluated and the availability of a plan of action to mitigate or action; and on the criteria set to determine success. Gather information from all employee levels and from a large cross-section of stakeholders i.e. clients, suppliers, regulators, government, competitors, etc. Benchmark by assessing how other players within your industry or across are handling various business scenarios, and consider what they are facing; their risks or opportunities might be the same as yours or perhaps their risks will create risks for you down the line or the opposite. Dig deep into this exercise before you move on, and return to it periodically so that you can update your risk and opportunity profile as the world progresses through these unprecedented times because the business landscape is dynamic.

Adapting the business to the new normal?

Document the change for coherence with the business management system otherwise if this change has not been integrated and implemented you may find yourself with a major non-conformance as your system as documented is no longer current to how you operate. Bring forward Management Review - make sure you have an overarching strategy in place to not only survive this current period but for what is going to happen afterward. Things will surely change. Most importantly, coexist with your stakeholders – No man is an island. No business is immune to the pandemic. Avoid derailing business relationships built over time by cancelling payments, reducing benefits to employees, changing suppliers, etc. Chances are very high that they are relying on your support to stay afloat. Where the business is facing challenges, engage your stakeholders and negotiate for a win-win. Develop synergies amongst your ecosystems and leverage off that. If my competitor is hiring a kombi for their employees and have space for two (2) or three (3) persons – why should I hire a separate kombi when I can simply engage and reduce the hiring load on a competitor. Where applicable integrate customer systems, supplier systems, business processes.

Invest in the necessary infrastructure to reduce waste, strengthen resiliency, and transition from a carbon economy. Not only does that investment need to be into physical infrastructure, but also into education, human development, and the individual and organisational skills to support the ongoing changes. Take care of your team whether at work or home because Covid-19 induced changes have had a toll on the employee psychological framework. Re-induct staff to the introduced changes. Go easy on your disciplinary policy on procedure violations. Share tips on working from home, install and subscribe Wi-Fi for them, issue cell phone talk time, video chat – eye contact is good for psychological wellness. Develop organisational practices, physical infrastructure, and human capital to better predict and respond to future risks. April Engineers are currently working with local clients to develop programs, risk models, skills development, and assessment of effectiveness in each of the business process areas so that when the next pandemic, cyber attack, or climate related risk happens, they are better prepared to respond.

The purpose of business continuity is to ensure that your business is able to survive a critical incident.