Re-strategize your Business

Dr. Martin Mwanje Lwanga

Following the corona virus pandemic and the lockdown there has been a lot of talk about business recovery. I must say this talk gives a picture that is quite misleading because in truth most business are not going to recover anytime soon back to their prior level of performance.

This is not much to be argued about at least for most of the rest of this year with travel restrictions and social distancing measures still in place. Besides it is a fact every economy in the world is in decline, meaning there will be a less demand of products and services, which will inevitably affect most business sales.

So what is the way forward? The important thing which business should rather be focusing on is not recovery, but rather how to change their strategy in the post COVID-19 era and remain not only relevant to their customers but flourish. When the business environment changes as is certainly the case now, you can’t insist on using the same old strategy. It can’t be back to business as usual.

Take the example of those in education. Before one suggests recovery any education institution that is going to flourish must plan on embracing on line education. Those in retail industry, like say restaurants, must clearly by now have discovered the need to imbed online delivery in their supply chain. If you are in the office space industry you might be thinking of reconverting some of that space into residential units as people move offices to home.

The way one manages human resources is also going to have to change. Old practices of filling up payroll with salaried workers must now transition into contract workers engaged to deliver specific tasks, as one cost saving measure. The savings can then be invested into more productive revenue generating streams in a digitized economy.

Re strategizing a business means studying your customers afresh and understanding their new behaviours and needs. Mr. Mark Ocitti who heads Serengeti Breweries in Tanzania wrote recently an article “Emerging from COVID -19 crisis” where he pointed out finding the customer where he has moved instead of assuming he is where you left him. This might mean among others a business has also to physically relocate.

However, the customer might not only have moved but his needs changed as well, in a new money scarce economy. What are those new needs you can take advantage of now? What new business segments are emerging to give you opportunities to tap into.

Look at all the customers who are now more conscious of their health. Is it a minus or plus? As they give up certain behaviours like mixing into crowds they adopt new ones like relying on home bound delivery ( transport) of goods and services, while at home. Which are those? As customers trade off luxuries for necessities, that might be a business opportunity to tap into.

In other words trading in something that has lost market appeal because that is the way your business has always functioned, is not going to help you much recover your business.

Change strategy. Insisting on business recovery can only make sense when you first re strategize your business to fit into a new and much different world. Do not as some are quick to do only look for areas to cut down costs, hoping demand will soon rebound, but rather look for and find those new areas, where you can take advantage of, invest in, then win new customers who might be altogether different from your old ones.