11 June 2020

The COVID-19 crisis, like any other major, uncontrollable event—recessions, natural disasters, etc.—is forcing businesses to maximize resilience while adapting across various levels: Supply, human resources, marketing, etc.

Businesses must demonstrate flexibility that first requires adapting their business model to this new reality, while taking into account the human impact that such changes have on their employees, clients, management, and partners.

10 steps to help you take the strategic step back needed to objectively assess the situation, plan beneficial and sustainable changes, and take action.

1. Assess your organizational culture: Enjoyment, learning, purpose, caring, order, safety, authority, and results. To determine which culture aligns with your company, ask yourself:

a) How do my employees interact? Are they independent or interdependent?

b) How do they react to change? Are they flexible or do they prefer stability?

If your current organizational culture is diametrically opposed to what you want to promote in a crisis situation, ensure to implement changes gradually rather than applying drastic changes.

2. Analyze the impact of the crisis on your business sector: Take stock of the evolution of your market in its context before, during, and after the crisis to identify any resulting threats and opportunities. Stay informed using your network, sectoral associations, and market watch tools to effectively forecast the changes to your industry.

3. Think strategically to manage change: As your resources are limited, select which new projects to create or enhance, while identifying those requiring a reduction of efforts or simply termination until the change is complete.

4. Find your levers for change: If you want the transformation to become a positive lever for your company, make sure that you can answer yes to the following questions: Do you want to do it? Are you interested in doing it? Do you have the ability and means to do it?

5. Devise your business model on a one-page Business Model Canvas (download a large-format version here).

6. Adjust your business model based on the changes you want to implement while maintaining the feasibility, desirability, and viability of the model.

7. Create different business model scenarios to adapt to the market’s uncertainty.

8. Test and promptly validate your different scenarios and hypotheses through field interviews with your clients and partners or by prototyping to mitigate the risk of deploying your new business model.

9. Communicate throughout the process with your various stakeholders to keep them engaged and informed of your intended changes.

10. Measure the impact of the innovations applied to your business model, client satisfaction, organizational culture, and outreach.

Sherbrooke Innopole can guide you through these steps, which will allow you to seize any opportunities hiding in adversity. Contact us!

info@sherbrooke-innopole.com / +1 819 821-5577 ext. 0