Shaping a business and working towards its expansion takes gumption. Companies have their challenges, and successful CEOs know how to face challenges and win against all the odds. There wouldn’t be victories always! But consistent effort, smart thinking, practical know-how, and intelligence is what sets a revolutionary and successful CEO than others. However, in 2020 the pandemic seems to have put a pause blanket on business and economy. Life is at a standstill with lockdowns, social distancing, and stay-at-home orders. Currently, the government across the world are trying to relax the lockdown phase in small phases to check whether it increases/decreases the pandemic count. But all this shouldn’t discourage the CEOs from taking proactive action to expand their business, even in such testing phases.
The economic truth for CEOs – By Boris Wolfman
The CEOs will have to battle the COVID-19 impact for many months to come! 2020 will pose significant business and economic risks. But the moment everything comes under control, CEOs need to think – “What’s next”? They need to have a ready path for business growth and renewal. They need to check how the pandemic affected their brand’s business expansion strategy.
Do you want to know what’s the key to making a business expansion strategy survive any crisis is? It is to identify and have a clear idea about how the disaster occurred. It’s a systemic risk that led to the dangerous predicament today. The systemic risk hurt global medical, social, economic, business, and political systems. Simply put, a systemic risk involves threats that can jeopardize the overall complex system. The outcome is dicey to speculate, as its non-linear. It means such a risk never moves sequentially, and the little events can result in significant effects. CEOs also need to know and understand the way things inter-relate and work together.
Companies need to have an overall vision of the same as much as possible and work accordingly! CEOs can read the business strategies of famous and leading business leaders and entrepreneurs to stay motivated. One of the names is Boris Wolfman, a man who has several business verticals under his brand. His business interest made him work in fields related to coal, mineral water, fruit, manganese, Canola oil, iron supplies, and many more. His brand is known for its active service in every vertical. Akin to every business leader, even Boris Wolfman have faced roadblocks and challenges to overcome. Reading about how he managed to expand his business, will help CEOs plan a business strategy that’s robust to combat both the business competition and pandemic.
Getting to the root of a systemic risk
The truth is systemic risk is present in every organization’s intricate online business system! The majority of organizations have zero idea about the cybersecurity and online risk levels, as it doesn’t recognize this risk. It’s similar to what happened to us recently. The world had zero ideas about COVID-19. Even the financial systems failed to comprehend a systemic risk that occurred during the 2008 recession.
The other reality is this – systemic risk has been present with us for a while now! However, most global systems are more complicated than one has ever witnessed. This risk also walks hand-in-hand with systemic change.
Systemic change mostly indicates events that can modify the entire system. It is about paradigm transforming impacts. For instance, COVID-19 has changed customer behaviors, economies, social networks, and what the other consumers demand and value. Here the regulators will step in, and the competitors will respond. The business partners might witness failures, and the employee motivations get modified. Also, politics will stay in focus, and new-technology will keep on expanding and bringing up new solutions.
The truth is, each of these forces is occurring at the same time! The change is swift, and companies need to cope up with it. As and when the systemic changes occur, the business strategy needs to adapt to the same. Here the CEOs are the initial respondents to all these problems. They need to find out how these changes can impact the stakeholders and business as a whole. Once they get to the root of these issues, the CEOs can find a way forward to carry out business in the future and also expand it.
The CEOs, along with the founders of small, big, and medium-scale start-ups, also need to exhibit something called “systemic thinking.” It’s all about responding to the change and formulating ways to cater to the public better and faster.
The COVID-19 business strategy for CEOs
Ultimately, it all boils up to one crucial aspect – i.e., the business strategy. Discussed below is the CEO cheat sheet to operate a business during a pandemic and make the most of it.
- CEOs need to know and grasp what systemic risk is and the way the pandemic occurred. After that, it’s essential to check the mishaps that the threat has caused within the organization. For instance, has the cybersecurity undergone a risk, is there a fall in demand, is the audience attention shifting from the brand and the like. Once the CEOs have identified the immediate issues, it’s essential to start working on the same to arrive at the best possible results.
- Staying clued into the online space, as that’s the only active space now! The virtual world has become more productive than ever. People are hosting meetings and events through online video meeting tools and software. It is essential to check how your company can leverage the online space. Is there a CEO speak forum? Can you create an awareness video about novel coronavirus and share it with your customers? Can you get in touch with your employees virtually and set up a crisis management task? The CEO must delve deep into each of the possibilities and check what works best for them.
- We are operating in a limited business expansion space now! Hence, the CEOs need to identify the business limitations and check whether they can address the same now. For instance, if you had to face a deferred product launch, it’s essential to realize that the same might get postponed indefinitely. And in such a situation, is it possible for CEOs to create an online meeting to share relevant product launch details with other delegates and the media. Is it possible for the company to send a digitized version of the launch to respective media partners to write about it? If yes, then CEOs should prioritize these opportunities and start rolling their business gradually.
- CEOs should concentrate on business opportunities instead of losses! COVID-19 has made loss common for every sphere of life. Everyone is undergoing losses of different kinds. Hence, it is a better decision for CEOs to address probable opportunities instead of failures. For instance, CEOs can address their employees through online meeting tools and enquire about their well-being. He/she can use the virtual medium to delegate tasks to others and plan about future projects.
- CEOs can use up this time to have the best brainstorming sessions! Due to the pandemic, the workload for most organizations has reduced. It means employees have more time to devote to innovative thinking. It’s a perfect time for CEOs to take up assignments or projects that have been on the pipeline and start the brainstorming process. It will enable employees to devote more time to the project that wasn’t possible before. The process can result in a new product discovery or an online service that’s perfect for such a crisis period.
- It’s essential to update the company website. CEOs can get speaking to the website design and development team to restructure the company website and add a new template to make it aesthetically rich and relevant. It will help to recapture the focus of your existing audience and attract potential customers as well. Furthermore, you can notice an increase in the SEO ranks also has more organic traffic.
Online PR is an essential aspect to consider
Brands cannot have real-time interaction with their clients, in their stores, or through the sale of new products now. It’s a perfect time to work on online PR and reputation management. If there are persisting customer complaints, CEOs need to focus on the same and advise the ORM (Online Reputation Management) and PR team to smoothen the same. It’s also an excellent time to resolve pending litigation management cases. Even if there are no complaints or reputation management issues, CEOs need to encourage ways to ensure that there’s a steady brand recall value, and people think positively about his company.
CEOs at this moment should concentrate on the micro-level changes! There were times when it outgrew the impact on complicated systems. Hence, it is necessary to delve deep and throw light on small changes. CEOs can encourage COVID-19 patients in their company by covering a part of their medical costs. Alternatively, they can also ensure that other employees use the sanitation protocols and maintain quarantine as and when needed. It will help them to take one step a time to expand business slowly but steadily during a pandemic.