5 Ways To Get Your Business Through Covid's 2nd Wave

How to prepare your business for the next wave of Covid-19

The Western world is about to experience the second wave of Coronavirus and it’s first winter with the virus. The next wave could be tougher and longer than the first as Covid combines with the flu season. Hospitals and doctors surgery's will likely get stretched to the limit.

But how should leaders prepare their business for the second wave? Right when it was starting to feel like things were getting back to some kind of normal we’ve been snapped back in time to last spring and the horrific first wave.

We've had a few months to think about developing a new post-pandemic strategy and business model. But how much of that have you managed to implement? And how long have you planned for Covid-19 still being around?

Here are 5 strategies for dealing with the 2nd wave:

1. Develop a new, post-pandemic 3 year strategy and business plan. We all know a lot more about our customer and employee reaction to the pandemic by now. And we should be more effective at reading the new market sentiment. Assume that western markets will have Covid-19 still around, with restrictions in place until the summer of 2022. If you want to be more cautious assume it will be there for all three years. Set cautious earnings expectations.

2. Become a Covid-19 sector leader - for your customers, your employees, investors and suppliers. As a business leader you will be expected to be an expert in Covid-19 and to make your business and brand the sector’s safest, most Covid compliant entity to buy from or work for. As consumers we have developed a sense of which organisations and brands we have grown to trust and support from the first wave of the pandemic. Make sure you are top of the list through the second wave and beyond.

3. Make your business digital first. The best way to scale through this pandemic and beyond is to be digital first. Indeed, there are a growing number of sectors where online is the only future for at least the next six months - possibly more. Think theatre, live music, stadiums, big events, conferences etc. Thomas Cook, the once market leading travel company, has come back from liquidation online-only and fully Covid compliant. Thomas Cook Group used to employ 9000 people in the UK, with 560 high street locations and a fleet of aircraft, but the new company employs just 50 people working remotely.

4. Get better at innovation. You're going to need it like never before. And with tighter resources, changing markets and a new set of business rules you will need to develop cost effective incubator processes to develop new innovations and approaches. If not, the next generation of unencumbered start-ups will do it for you. Corporate incubation is something that the new Letts Group has taken very seriously. After they lost the battle for the digital diary they set up their own incubator - today it’s called Letts Incubate.

5. Go green. As the pandemic changes our lives for the next few years, many of your customers behaviours will change for good. One of the trends will be a broader based consumer desire to tackle climate change. Your customers will increasingly want to do business with companies that have climate friendly business practices and products. They will want to understand how you will achieve net zero and how your products and services help reduce global warming. See our 10 Step Climate Action Plan for Business.

The next six months are going to be challenging. Make sure to pace yourself, conserve cash, look after your customers and employees and lean into the new world. It's going to be with us for quite a while.

Unless, of course, we mess up the climate change thing.

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