The very nature of business is the ability to adapt to change.
We have mature products, we have new products, and we look for new opportunities. And we do it all the time. All that Covid-19 has forced upon us (and I don’t mean to minimise the impact on those who have lost jobs and futures, that’s not what this blog is about) is to change more quickly.
Let me explain. Most businesses focus on a list of perhaps five things to do at any given time. For example, managing our customers better, finalising a new plant opening in China, getting the new distribution centre in West Australia up and running, looking at our business systems because we’re not sure they’re going to support where we’re going. And, yes, finding new markets.
Well that list has now contracted to one. Finding new markets. That’s not a ‘pivotal’ moment, it’s business-as-usual but with a much shorter and focussed to-do list.
Easier said than done, you might say. But let me go back to this earlier point: if you have the tools, solutions, applications and teams in place in your business to adjust and adapt in a disruptive marketplace, you don’t need to ‘pivot.’