Business management in times of coronavirus and in post-pandemic days
After a year of pandemic, one of the irrefutable lessons left by the crisis is the urgent need for the business fabric to adapt its structures and adjust its operations to a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment (VUCA). Without this accommodation it will be practically impossible to survive the present and think, with certain guarantees, about the future.
Covid-19 has changed the rules of the game, disrupted habits and altered priorities, short-circuiting those more traditional business management models. An unexpected emergency in the form of a global virus has precipitated dire consequences for economic activity, causing deep material scars and intangible wounds in the business strategy of most organizations around the world.
Faced with this still unfinished derivative, boards of directors and management teams have had to prioritize the now, facing the financial, operational and organizational challenges brought about by the pandemic. Remodel their professional routines, restructure and innovate,to offer immediate response to a dynamic demand, in continuous evolution. Adapt to the changing needs of all the parties involved (workers, suppliers, customers, shareholders...) and establish, with little room for manoeuvre and error, new ways to survive and grow. All this with the inalienable objective of managing in the best possible way the economic and human shock caused by this systemic crisis.
Challenge and window of opportunity At first, confinement and social distancing, among other factors, forced a large number of companies to change the way they work, forcing them to reinvent themselves unmitigatedly.
Having overcome this initial stage of bewilderment and adaptation, much of the corporate framework begins to recover its pulse, moving towards the comeback. In this journey not without difficulties, organizations face the challenge of equipping themselves with a reinvention plan that looks to the future, that is able to face new latent threats and, at the same time, generates opportunities.
The reading of the moment invites us to think that the short and medium term future of organizations will have little or nothing to do with pre-Covid business practices, behaviors and values. In line with the rise of ESG criteria and socially responsible corporate policies,the business community as a whole is fully aware of the importance of knowing how to properly manage a crisis as unexpected and forceful as the current one to capitalize on it and come out stronger. Incorporating these guidelines into your strategy, all levels and areas of activity will be crucial to the success of your business.
The physiognomy of the labour market is in the midth of a process of constant transformation. The pandemic has led to an unparalleled organizational metamorphosis, the redesign of our way of working, of relating. With it, new management paradigms have emerged, once quite unlikely, and which, in still turbulent days, have a permanent framework.
One of the best ways to cut the shackles of the past is to overcome rigid and static models of organization,dogmatic systems based on conservatism, which in addition to constraining activity, undermine business development. The way to do it? Giving entry to less conventional proposals,more agile, digital, with greater shares of innovation, which abandon their hermetic character to adapt to the pace dictated by the markets, to the cadence imposed by a new 'normal' that continues to materialize every day that passes. And all this with a time horizon that transcends the very emergency decreed by the coronavirus.
An environment, in the era of the collaborative economy(gig economy),in which a certain fragmentation of workplaces is beginning to be seen and the traditional relationship between employers and employees is somewhat blurred. Strong hierarchy or privacy, among other ingredients, gradually give way to a distributed authority based on roles and responsibilities; a greater dose of transparency and a more active participation - of all .
In this sense, technology has a lot to contribute. Over time, new, more flexible forms of work are opening up, such as smart working (offering workers autonomy and flexibility in relation to the place, times and tools), crowd employment (online platform that connects companies and workers with other companies and professionals who provide specific products and services), job sharing (sharing a position and salary) or casual work (a kind of temporary work in which they are only hired to meet specific needs), etc.
Likewise, faced with this panorama of uncertainty, a large number of companies, many of them emerging, have chosen to migrate to the online world and develop completely in the digital sphere, becoming examples of resilient, promising companies with great attraction to work for. A ranking made by LinkedIn headed by ThePowerMBA, Colvin and Factorial HR. Renew or die.
Now, therefore, with a greater perspective, the lived experience allows the emergence of avant-garde approaches and approaches in the field of management that, well combined, will help to mitigate the financial and operational exposure, while encouraging an opportunity to deepen the change (in beliefs, in the values ...) and its sustainability over time.
Bet on the person Companies know that the time has come to rethink their role in this new normal,enhancing their role as transformative agents with great social impact. At this point, it is time for organizations to analyze the implications of the crisis and question what will be, or should be, the management of post-pandemic organizational change and how this transformation affects leadership and teamwork.
From a functional point of view, the person, the talent, a diverse and inclusive human capital,will continue to constitute the greatest strategic asset of any company; an engine to maintain activity and create differential value. And, as such, it is essential to implement flexible lines of action in tune with the new times that ensure the maintenance of employment and the health of workers.
An unquestionable priority.
Management systems that, in addition to trusting in their know-how, in their abilities (digital skills and mastery of technological tools, to a large extent), are able to encourage and give greater weight to socialskills (soft skills); to stimulate their participation in decision-making, strengthening people's commitment to the business project. Continuous training, the adaptation of these skills to their performance will be crucial to build competitive companies. All this, in addition, within a scheme that promotes the balance of professional, personal and family life (conciliation, flexible schedules ...), that ensures their safety,their protection on the way back to the offices and allows them to carry out their work in the best way. Undoubtedly, a great competitive advantage to forge stronger companies that aspire to position themselves with solvency in the markets.
With the focus on technology The ongoing digital transformation in the business sphere, still incipient in many cases, has undergone a drastic change of pace with the outbreak of the pandemic. A circumstance that has forced a large part of the business network to adopt, in record time, new standards, new ways of working, with teleworking as a spearhead.
In the case of remote work, the Bank of Spain states in a survey carried out among a group of companies that 80% of the sample has increased this modality "in order that their activity suffers as little as possible in the current situation". On the workers' side, 51% of those surveyed by the consulting firm Bain & Company prefer teleworking,compared to 25% who still choose to do it in person; and 68% say they are equally or more productive connected from home.
Overall, hyperconnectivity has allowed many organizations to stay active during the worst moments of the pandemic. Thus, the generalization of the use of ICT in corporate processes has accelerated significantly to respond to labor requirements, to such an extent that digitalization, in addition to allowing a modernization of operations, results in great benefits for companies, helping them to reduce costs, to innovate (better and faster), preparing them for hypothetical shocks to come and underpinning their resilience.
A couple of notes can help to have a clearer vision of the recent advances in digitalization undertaken by companies in our country. According to data from a study by the multinational Salesforce, about 70% of executives of large corporations claim to have implemented some kind of technological transformation in days of pandemic. On the other hand, the report 'Digital Economy in Spain' by Adigital and Boston Consulting Group points out that, prior to the outbreak of the crisis, the digital economy hovered around 19% of the national GDP in 2019, a figure that places us above the average of most countries in the world. An invitation, without a doubt, to continue working in this direction.
In this way, digital transformation helps to overcome the multiple disruptions caused by the coronavirus, while serving as a springboard for companies to catapult their businesses through the use of ICT.
In these last 12 months, the vast majority of organizations have discovered how the disruptions and lack of security and certainty caused by the crisis are both threat and opportunity. In his hand, the possibility of continuing to reinvent their management models in order to achieve the emergence of forms of work that, based on innovation, digital, commitment and closeness, are aligned with the new prevailing reality.












