5 Steps to Lead an Enterprise Through a Global Crisis

During the global COVID-19 health crisis, business leaders are juggling many urgent concerns – managing employees, monitoring the ongoing health and well-being of their teams, keeping up productivity amidst the sudden switch to virtual work, maintaining corporate revenues, and trying to plan quarterly forecasts around the impact of a global pandemic, to name just a few. To say these are trying times is a vast understatement. In fact, what we are experiencing may be the darkest times in our global economic history. That’s a staggering thought.

Re-focus business priorities

To provide employees and stakeholders with a feeling of stability during turbulent times, possibly the most important thing a business leader can do is reset overall business priorities. This will vary from business to business, but perhaps one of the first considerations could be focusing on current product offerings.

For a software company like mine, that means setting the engineering objectives strictly on fine tuning our current product offerings. By this, I’m referring to those projects that often have to wait for someone on the team to have the spare time to tackle them. The chances are good that our present condition of forced quarantine, where no one is permitted to travel, has suddenly produced the positive side effect of having more available time! Find your company’s silver lining.

Strengthen existing product offerings

By giving our existing product offerings some extra attention now and ensuring they are at their strongest, our company will be well-positioned to address the immediate needs of any existing or potentially new customers. During this time especially, new customers who approach our business are likely doing so because their business has suddenly encountered an unexpected or negative circumstance due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even now, patterns are emerging in this ‘new normal’ of a (mostly) quarantined world that businesses are coping with. To be sure, even the most seasoned and qualified economists on the planet don’t have models to help us forecast within the present market conditions. But we can still rely on certain indicators. As an example, if customers are buying our product or solution in a crisis, this may signify that their business fits our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). When we examine that customer’s primary business and then look at others in their market space, our sales team might find other businesses that could benefit from our help during this crisis and beyond.

Learn from new customers and their needs

To an extent, our customers are responsible for driving the success of our business. Especially during a crisis situation, there are valuable lessons we can glean from new customers, as well as the various types of organizations or industries where our product offerings may be most useful. If we pay careful attention, we may find unexpected competitive advantages to help our businesses weather the economic storm.

This leads me to another point, which is how we can help other businesses get through this rough patch, too. One thing a company can do for new customers is offer discounts or price flexibility with specific solution sets or bundles targeted to the ICP. A tumultuous business climate is the perfect time to create a starter package with special pricing that demonstrates your understanding of the customer’s specific business problems.

Care for existing customers, too

If the uncertainty in the global economy persists for months more, it is essential for business leaders to ensure and maintain the company’s commitment to its existing customer base, and step up efforts to anticipate their needs. Existing customers may be struggling with cashflow or liquidity, and if your company is a good partner, you might establish flexibility in payment terms. By doing this, it could reassure your current customers that your commitment to their business is for the long haul.

Right now, so many companies have been deeply affected by physical closures around the world. These companies are turning to an online presence and quickly shifting business models to keep the digital doors of their businesses open. For those making this transition, technologies related to application security or dynamic application security testing may not be something they previously had much need for. But have become mission critical to ensure business continuity and security.

When we look at what’s happening with shopping during a pandemic, people are trying to order nearly everything from online services. This would be the absolute worst time for a business to be hit with a denial of service attack or an application breach. Any loss of online service could equate to the loss of their business. The security of online availability should, therefore, be the priority of any company trying to build a solution for business continuity. This provides opportunities for companies like mine to help identify where vulnerabilities to breaches exist, etc.

Some things that contribute to a business continuity plan might be a risk assessment and analysis. This can help quantify risk in terms of financial loss, data loss, loss of confidentiality, or integrity and help organizational leaders to make more accurate and meaningful business decisions.

Remain positive and look for opportunities

In any crisis situation, our first priority is to lead and manage through the uncertainty. But there will also be moments that allow you to take stock of the business and identify what is most important to the organization – especially for its customers, partners, suppliers and employees. When you have a deep understanding of the required resources that sustain continuous operations, you can begin to separate the focus from the critical to less critical.

Another approach to managing well during a crisis is to seek out opportunities for operational efficiency. As I mentioned previously, there’s a lot about our current situation we don’t have a model for. The same is true for any action plans or scenario modeling a business may have done before now. There’s not a lot we could have predicted about what we’re experiencing today. However, how your organization has managed change in the past could be a likely indicator for how you’ll uncover opportunities in our current state, and how you are positioned to make the recovery period shorter. New business models may come out of this, and truly innovative companies will discover how to capitalize on this opportunity.

Written by Craig Hinkley. Have you read?
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