“To achieve efficiency, this year, the idea of ‘tweaking your budget’ need not happen”. “Re-write it”! We advised. The intention was to help our client achieve organizational fitness. The traditional approach of horizontal extrapolation of numbers cannot work. No company had expected and budgeted for a pandemic. It happened as a shock and has turned the world upside down across all industries. Continued from part 2. If you are to win, you must throw the old strategy out of the window. And get back to the drawing table. Re-write the strategy. And now more than before, you cannot just go…
Creative thinking: Managing your business during hard times, part 2
What about the number of years the business has been in existence? No. Not at all. Historical pre-existence does not necessarily provide immunity to the troubles caused by hard times. The corporate graveyard is full of dead companies that failed to respond to the modern VUCAP – volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and pandemic times. Many others are on their sickbed. Continued from part 1. Then what matters? It is the behaviours of business leaders and managers that matter the most! It is about the response and recovery decisions taken by business leaders during and after the hard times have struck.…
Winning in the COVID-19 era of scientific living
Scientific this, scientific that, ‘scientific’ is now in vogue. COVID-19 has created the need to keep a social distance. It is a punch in the gut to what makes us human – social interactions. People have therefore resorted to using technology to interact and deliver services. The national elections of 2021 have now been baptized ‘scientific elections. Just because this time around candidates shall not be allowed to conduct mass rallies to the campaign. They must do so via digital channels – television, internet, mobile phones, and social media. All Church activities are now “scientific” – you now have a…
Cybersecurity: Considerations for remote working and virtual meetings
If there is anything that COVID-19 has left us with, it is the leapfrog into the world of technology early adopters in our professional working lives. Despite our early adoption for new technologies at Summit Consulting Ltd, we never used virtual meeting applications and tools as intense as we did following the coronavirus pandemic lockdown. Before the pandemic, the major tools in use were Teamviewer, Remote Desktop, and Skype to mention but three. Suddenly, in February 2020, many things changed. Movements and interactions became limited and restricted. The economy was under lockdown as schools, offices, and businesses were closed as…
Creative thinking: Managing your business during hard times, part 1
The world is experiencing yet another crisis, that is more aggressive and pervasive. Unlike the financial-economic crisis of 2008, the COVID-19 pandemic has been disrupted all industries, while giving advantages to select few like technology companies to thrive. Sectors like Aviation, Hospitality, Tourism, Entertainment, and main-stream businesses have suffered the wrath of the pandemic. It seems to worsen by the day. Did the economic crisis find you as a business leader? Or to put another way, are you managing a business during the present COVID-19 “tsunami” times? If yes, I bet your dominating goal is to navigate this period safely,…
Train your board on Public Relations, Social Media, Digital and Personal cybersecurity
For any dynamic financial institution, the management of Public Relations is a key priority for its Board, and your organization is no exception. Many Board members lack the skills they need to succeed in positively influencing public perceptions. In April 2020, a prospect called asking for help over the leaked board papers. One of the board members had lost access to his cloud email access to a hacker, to which lots of board papers had been sent. They wanted us to help recover the board member’s email account and stop the hackers from accessing it. A very tall order, especially…