Business goes on
The market has been facing some serious turbulence lately. Changes are fast, and for most people, it feels difficult to predict what the future holds. When we consider things from a broader perspective, there have been plenty of crises we have gone through in the past. Some of these events we have only heard about when we were young, and some we have personally lived through and survived. Crises that many of us have experienced include, for example, Chernobyl, the Gulf war, the Dot-com bubble burst, the Lehman-Brothers bank crisis, Brexit, and most recently, the global pandemic and the ongoing war in Europe. Eventually, these will stop too, we hope. Nevertheless, business goes on.
A good plan helps to get over the turbulence
Creating a plan to overcome the crisis is essential. From the employee’s perspective, encountering rough times can feel like the entire company is changing. Cutting budgets from all the fun things, freezing in-house projects, and facing pressure to perform better, cheaper, and faster can significantly impact the overall working atmosphere. These changes can make it feel like it’s not the same workplace anymore. However, it doesn’t have to be like that.
It’s crucial to communicate that getting through a crisis or market change does not define your company. It’s just a phase that needs a plan to get through. Present the plan as a special mission that will end after you have reached your goal. Communicating the progress of this temporary mission, the collective goals of the company, and the strategies to achieve them are the keys to overcoming the turbulence together.
We can't control what we don't know
Many of us can relate to the experience of cancelled projects and massive drops in company revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic. No one knew how long it would last or how to overcome it, let alone win back lost customers or attract new ones. But all of us knew the costs of running the business. Making more of the business data visible helps steer actions in the right and profitable direction. At that point, it boils down to simple maths: How many people do we have, and how much revenue do we need to sustain our business and regain the freedom to operate it the way we want? We cannot control the unknown, but we can embrace our own business data to navigate our way back to success. This is where understanding your numbers and using them becomes the key.
Data is your friend
It is essential to direct the flow of business data through your organisation to the people who need it to be more productive. In addition, ensure that the tools of digital sales, service and marketing work together and support real time visibility, right time action and steerability of the company. These technologies – we call them growth tech – should be in good shape before the next crisis, if they aren’t already.
Read more about growth tech and how to make your data your best friend [here].
