Over the past 2 months Outrider has been busy helping clients deal with their COVID management issues; it seemed appropriate to hold off posting until a clearer picture about the COVID impacts on business and the broader community had emerged. In the interim there has been much speculation about the post COVID operating environment for businesses, households and government. Predicting the future is a very challenging task.
A big post COVID difference, requiring no special foresight, will be the motivation and mindset of business leaders who have worked through a significant shock and are now willing to approach change more aggressively. For some this will be based on business survival and for others the focus will be emergent opportunities in a marketplace rebuilding structurally after the first COVID impacts have passed. Those who set up for success will move from dabbling with improved technology practices to “mainstreaming” them into their business DNA.
What Outrider has observed are some trends that look important for businesses trying to reconstruct their operating model or establish a new one. Businesses focused on the following practices are likely to be advantaged:
What Outrider has observed are some trends that look important for businesses trying to reconstruct their operating model or establish a new one. Businesses focused on the following practices are likely to be advantaged:
- a renewed emphasis on good design processes as more and more services (customer facing and internal) become dependent upon digital platforms
- continuing to be brave in looking at new approaches to customer engagement and creating a market - in the spirit of the COVID business response witnessed over the past 8 weeks
- planned experimentation and testing of new ideas prompting a faster cycle of change adoption
- developing and leveraging collaboration networks to build new customer and employee value propositions – shaking off the business centric thinking and considering the future within a broader problem space
Also keep in mind the importance of:
- adopting a good risk management approach to technology driven change
- a sound security posture; something that has become an even bigger focus thanks to COVID and remote working structures
- having a framework for measuring the successes of the initiatives you undertake; fast failure implies moving on quickly when something hasn’t gone well
- diverse thinking and fresh perspectives which are always important but increasingly so in a world that has become much more complex than it was 6 months ago
Good luck to all those working away restoring there businesses.