Adapt, Grow, Thrive

14 May 2020 by Steven Giannoulis

Today we move into Level 2 and begin the process of resuming life, and business, post the Covid crisis. With so much disruption and uncertainty, how do you begin to make sense of the road ahead to prosperity?

What we can be certain of is that a post Covid-19 New Zealand will be a very different world to what we knew before lockdown. A kinder and more caring place, maybe. A much harsher economic reality, definitely. Many things will never go back to where they were. The way we interact with each other. Our priorities. Our definition of success.

In this new world, the companies who’ll prosper are those who focus, not on going back to where they were, but on embracing the new future ahead.

As a creative-thinking business, our success has always been driven by helping our clients succeed.

In an uncertain world, the road ahead still remains clear. We’ll succeed if we help our clients adapt, grow and thrive in new New Zealand. Over the next three weeks we’ll explore each of these topics fully, providing insights and ideas to help our clients think about what their new reality is and how they make the most of it. For today, we outline the context and framework we’ll use to facilitate that thinking.

Positive adaptation requires reflection and lessons to be learnt. Start internally by thinking about lockdown. What things did you put in place, or do differently, that worked well? Should these become the new norm? What did you stop doing, that previously seemed important, but wasn’t missed during lockdown? Answering questions like these will give you a sense how everyday life could, and should, be different going forward.

Apply the same thinking to the world outside your business. What have you learnt about your customers? How has their world changed and how will this change their mindset, focus and actions? Not sure? Ask them. As a society, will we remain wary of crowds and continue to prefer online? Will we become even more safety and family orientated and pro-kiwi? Take a view on the future and the impact it will have on your business. Use this to frame your thinking and operations. In rapidly changing times, the worst thing you can do is wait and see – it may be too late. Adapt what you can now and then keep refining as you learn more.

Unless you are one of the few that prospered under Covid-19, your business will be now be focused on revenue growth. We survived lockdown but the reduction in revenue will be most noticeable in the months ahead as cashflow slows but the costs remain. Without increased revenue, the alternative is cutting costs.

Restoring revenue starts with existing customers. Retaining them should be priority and that means listening to what’s now important to them. Be ready to adapt your offer, your service, your communication and whatever it takes to keep them. Engage them positively, support them and you’ll build trust and loyalty, important cornerstones to longer term growth. Understanding your current customers’ needs will help you achieve growth through other customers who value the same thing.

Survival is the focus now, but for the longer-term, businesses need to do more than just survive. They need to thrive. What makes your business thrive? Your people and culture? Your service? Your operating model? Your innovation? Your community? Something else? Look back at what’s driven your success in the past. Now consider the future - will this be as important to your customers and to your business going forward? If not, what is it that will allow your business to thrive again? With this clarity, put your focus and efforts on this.In good times business can focus on many things. In tougher times they need to concentrate their spend and energy on the things that really matter – and this matters. Make a plan to foster it. Invest in it. Communicate it, painting a picture of how it will lead to a better future for the business and your people. Get everyone acting as one towards achieving it.

Read the three individual posts which explore these aspects of business recovery in detail:

Adapt

Grow

Thrive

________

For our business, we thrive when we deliver creative and clever solutions to the problems and opportunities our clients face. So that’s exactly what we’re focusing on. Along with this blog series of insights, we’ll work closely with each of our clients to identify strategic and creative ideas that will help them adapt, grow and thrive in their new New Zealand.

Give us one hour to hear about the challenges and opportunities facing your business in Level 2 and beyond. In return, we’ll give you three ideas to help you address them.No charge. No obligation. Get your boss, your peers and your team together and let’s talk about how you’ll adapt, grow and thrive in your NEW New Zealand.

Tags: Covid-19, Level 2, Business Recovery

The Sanford Integrated Report Journey

It seems that wherever we turn in corporate New Zealand, the Sanford integrated reports are held in the highest esteem and the benchmark that other companies measure their integrated reporting progress by. We...

03 Nov 2020 by Mike Tisdall

The arcane alchemy of strategic design

Insight Creative makes quite a play of calling itself a strategic design agency. But what is strategic design? And is it the game changer that we like to think it is? I’ve always been seduced by great...

03 Nov 2020 by Steven Giannoulis

Making business sense of WFH

Many of our clients and suppliers are working from home a day or two a week and that’s creating demand from our team to follow suit. We’re a small business looking to get back on track after...

29 Sep 2020 by Mike Tisdall

Wellbeing - the new lens on business performance?

On the very same day in 1876 that Alexander Graham Bell filed his patent for the telephone in Washington D.C., Elisha Gray filed his in Illinois. And a few years later, Briton Joseph Swan and American Thomas Edison...