2020 is certainly going to go down in history as the year when the world took a giant leap into the future.
Back in early 2013, I wrote a few articles about the changing nature of work and the likely impacts of technology advancement on offices and management, on housing (a move from the city centres), transport, and even on manufacturing and distribution logistics over the following five to 10 years. There’s little doubt in my mind that without the global pandemic, I would have been shown to be far too optimistic in my forecasts of the rate of change – showing clearly how much people – and companies – prefer to maintain the status quo unless forced to do otherwise.
And yet, from February/March this year, the world has changed at a fantastic pace, through this forced change, to ways of doing things that had previously been said to be “impossible”. Yet companies are now seeing the benefits of these changes, so will not revert to the old way of doing things even once they are allowed to.
People will continue to work remotely; both commercial and residential property prices in the city centres will continue to soften (we’ve already seen marked changes in London, for example, and I see this as just the start); transport infrastructure will take a hit, especially in the traditional commuter-heavy areas; and logistics operations will need to adapt to very different geographical, and other, demand patterns.
Locally, in the IT channel, it’s been a time of boom or bust – depending on the approach taken by different companies. Without naming names, I’ve seen some have a dismal time this year, while others have had record-breaking performance. The dismal ones tended to be stuck in a narrow-band strategy (for example, focused on large corporate server systems), while those who’ve broken new records have done so by recognising that they need to supply their customers with all their needs – from desktop to computer centre, and all in between. Give the customer what they want.
This seems to me analogous to a restaurant deciding it will only serve main courses as the hassle of starters and desserts is too much, and the price of such small plates is too low to justify doing them. A restaurant offering its customers everything – “from soup to nuts” as the old expression goes – will always do very much better in the long-term. There are many times when I’ve ordered just a couple of starters as I wanted something light. I’ve even been into a restaurant just for a dessert after a meal elsewhere when the restaurant I started at didn’t have a dessert I wanted. Subsequently, I’ve been back to that latter restaurant many times for full meals, so they’ve gained from having the right attitude.
It all highlights the need for businesses to treat strategy as a living thing. The norm has been for boards to produce a strategy document once every few years, looking ahead five or so years and detailing what is planned for the company in the light of what they are doing at that time. It’s then safely locked away until the time comes for a new strategy document some years later.
Wrong!
Strategy discussions should occupy the largest part of every board meeting and the strategy updated to take account of changing market conditions on an ongoing basis. Board meetings should be no more than 20% looking back (past results, etc), with at least 80% spent on looking ahead and not, as is so often the case, the other way around.
If 2020 has highlighted anything for me, it’s that companies need to focus on the road ahead, to be alert and alive to changing conditions and nimble enough in their operations to make the necessary changes. It used to be said that only the strongest survive. I would change that to say that only the nimble will survive – brute strength alone just isn’t enough in today’s world – as the erstwhile giants of yesteryear which appear only in history books will testify.
As Tony Robbins says: “Expect change. Analyse the landscape. Take the opportunities. Stop being the chess piece; become the player. It’s your move.”