By Dr. Lwanga Martin Mwanje
Kitagobwa Cleaning Company (KCC) was hit severely by the corona virus pandemic and its lockdown. Started a decade ago the company had thrived by snapping up accounts of largely city office blocs. It specialized in cleaning office spaces – mopping and dusting- which was often after office hours or just before offices opened. Business had thrived and the founder and chief executive officer, Sseruganda, was thinking of moving into other towns, when the coronavirus hit and a stringent lockdown was passed.
With almost all office blocs shut down business came to a standstill. Even after the lockdown was suspended most of the accounts did not call back KCC since many workers had moved to working from home, a new normal. The business was now paralyzed and Sseruganda thought of shutting it down altogether and permanently lay off all his workers on furlough. But just then he recalled once hearing a business management professor advise in a seminar to look at problems as opportunities. “Almost all the great business ideas,” the professor had shared, “started by seizing on problems. If people didn’t get thirsty would there be Coke? If there was no need to move goods why would we need trucks! It is problems that give birth to great businesses!”
Sseruganda scratched his head wondering what opportunity could come out of the lockdown and pandemic. According to government Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) crowds were now discouraged to meet and where so, only after stringent public health protection measures. “Each public event must record participants who must first go through rigorous health inspection,” the government had advised, among others.
“Perhaps I should transform my cleaning company into a health inspection event organizing company!” Sseruganda thought. He recalled according to company business registration he could offer a variety of services under the KCC brand. Soon, without wasting, he started going out promoting KCC as “the best SOP certified health events organizer!” If you had any type of function or event, from weddings to funerals, KCC, would help manage such by offering services like: recording attendees, taking temperatures, managing physical distance, sanitizing seats and surfaces, and ensuring hand wash sanitizer for all. To get business, Sseruganda, intensely promoted it on social media where most people now derived their information.
Many people who had been burdened with holding events while meeting government SOPS welcomed the new KCC business services. All of a sudden the company started getting orders that soon outpaced its sheer capacity. KCC which had been on the verge of closing now started hiring new workers and expanding.
Here in this business case we see a successful entrepreneur who has turned a problem into an opportunity. The same could apply to many other business hit by the pandemic and subsequent SOP measures.
A gym other than waiting for town to open up may start providing aerobic online classes. An eatery may open up delivery services. A tour company with its vehicles sitting idly may move them into shuttle services for office workers, rather than selling them off!
If there is anything that the pandemic has exposed is the need for business and organizations to rapidly adjust and adopt to new environment. The survivors and ultimate winners are those that are quick to embrace the new realities. Other than bemoaning their fate they would see this “new normal” as an opportunity to reinvent themselves by tapping into new behaviors and demands.
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