By Tommaso Canonici, Founding Partner & Managing Director Opinno Europe
We are living in the most uncertain time since World War II and possibly one of the greatest humanitarian crises this planet has ever experienced. I am not at all clear where this crisis will lead us, but what is certain is that when it ends we will live a new normality. Everything we will encounter will possibly be different and our mentality will have changed completely.
As always in these cases, the companies that will survive, in the medium and long term, will be those with the greatest capacity to adapt and that know how to innovate the most at this time in order to really take advantage of the opportunities that will be created tomorrow.
And at this point we managers have to learn from this moment that we are living and we must be clear that in times of uncertainty, we are paid to lead companies, to pitch in and to lead companies to a faster and more effective transformation. It would really be a failure if, once the crisis is over, we do not take home great lessons.
And it is in these moments that certain questions arise: What would have happened if we had done an Envisioning or a Backcasting before this crisis foreseeing that a global pandemic could occur, what would have happened if we really had future scenarios and contingency plans already made before this crisis?
Possibly we would have had a competitive advantage that would have made us much more competitive in the market and perhaps we would be sleeping easy right now. We cannot repeat the same mistakes and that is why, starting tomorrow, I invite you all to start thinking about the future. To start Envisioning on all the scenarios that may happen and take decisions and actions accordingly.
On the other hand, I call for action. I know that we are all full of emergency committees, Forecasting, contingency plans... but we need to reserve a little time to think about what the new normality is going to be, and above all, what our company is going to be relevant in this new normality.
The world is going to be different when we come back. Because we are going to live with totally different consumers and collaborators and where digitalization is going to be the most normal thing in the world. Teleworking and remote working will be the norm and that is why we must build the right manuals so that in the future, when this is normal, we really gain in productivity instead of losing efficiency.
In addition, the consumer will be totally different. Now we will wash our hands 10 times a day, we will be much more sensitive to health and wellbeing and those companies that really show value to this new approach will be able to have a competitive advantage over their competitors.
From now on it will be normal to drink beers with our distant friends via Hangouts, Skype or Amazon prime. But it will also be normal to close million-dollar contracts by these means. With all that we have experienced, globalization is going to be real, we will no longer have to hold meetings and go to China to sell our products, but we will really not care whether a company is in front of our offices or on the other side of the world. This will be an advantage for those companies that adapt well to this new normality.
That is why I am clear that only those companies that are already working to adapt to this new normality that we are experiencing can stay afloat and that will be more pressing as soon as all this happens, which I sincerely hope will be as soon as possible.
