How to Manage Business during Crisis I CMMU Mahidol Dr. Suparak

Hello everyone! I am Dr. Suparak Suriyankietkaew, Program Chairs of Business Management, and Human Capital and Organization Management) at College of Management, Mahidol University (CMMU)

Today, I would like to share with you my secret formula of ABCD about How to Managing during Crisis.
- For all businesses, the most important question now is
- How to manage/ lead a business and organization to survive the crisis and revive soon?.

Let’s start with A
- A:
- Leaders, executives and managers need to have 3As: Agility, Adaptability, Analysis
During the crisis, businesses need to have AGILITY – or in short – be agile with logic, act fast with careful decision-making, be flexible to adapt or change, reflecting to the reality of the situation.

Therefore, ADAPTABILITY comes into play. Organizations need to quickly adapt to change by revisiting your management, strategy, plan, and operations to respond to the crisis and pain points of your markets/customers.

Another critical A-word is ANALYSIS. During crisis, it is essential that leaders, executives and managers need to urgently assess, analyze & monitor the situations by factoring in all related external and internal factors. Executives and managers may use Scenario Analysis to prudentially forecast future possibilities and trends that may affect your business. What-if Analysis and Risk Analysis are tools that can also help businesses identify possible threats or any adverse effects/impacts and potential risks that may affect your current or future business. After you can identify your ‘Best-Base-Worst Case’ scenarios, you can take calculated risks and put forward your foresight strategy to deal with the crisis or try to find creative solutions to solve your problems. These practical analyses can also help you rationalize, foresee and plan - what/how to lead and manage your business during the now and near-term during the challenging times.

The 3A requires leadership, vision and accountability of leaders, executives and managers to proactively lead and prudentially manage the business with urgency and decisive actions.

- Next is B:
- The vital 2Bs for managing during crisis focus on BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLAN & BUSINESS MODEL REDESIGN

1. In fact, businesses need to have a Business continuity plan in advance. If not, you need a contingency plan for emergencies to ensure that your business can continue if any unfortunate events happen. The plan needs to be proactive, responsive and receptive to unfortunate circumstances that relate to any hazardous risks to health and safety concerns. So, executives and managers need to plan ahead with prompt strategy and operational actions to respond to any risks and concerns. In particular, you may foresee adverse effects/impacts that may be inconvenient for your stakeholders (like employees, customers, partners, suppliers etc). So, changes in working operation will happen. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments and businesses are lock downed. So, everyone is asked to travel less and exercise the social distancing. In this case, companies may need to initiate plans for employees to allow remote working or WORK FROM HOME. All communications and conferences/meetings will need to be online instead of face-to-face approach. So, your companies will need to promptly communicate, update and support your stakeholders with necessary tools (e.g. software or online/ mobile applications) to facilitate remote working plan.

2. The next B is Business model redesign. Since the crisis changes the way business work and operate. Your business model will need to be redesigned to respond to the changes. New creative solutions should be quickly developed to help your employees to continue working with effectiveness and efficiency, solve customers’ pain points, support your suppliers whose the supplier chain may be interrupted. Therefore, a new business redesign using online platforms (e.g. e-commerce/e-business or offline-to-online (O2O) business) will be necessary. Businesses may need sell products/services through various social media (Facebook, IG, Twitter) instead of having only normal storefronts. Working with the third-party mobile application service providers (e.g. Grab, Line Man, Get etc) may be crucial for your business survival. Importantly, the Business model redesign needs to done quickly and aims to support the peace of mind of your stakeholders, particularly your employees, customers and partners.

- C:
- The 2Cs (CRISIS & CHANGE MANAGEMENT + COMPASSIONATE BUSINESS) refer to the heart and mind of the how to manage and survive the challenging time.

1. First C is CRISIS & CHANGE MANAGEMENT.
- During the crisis and under uncertainties, businesses need to quickly respond to rapid changing circumstances. For business continuity, a special Crisis & Change Team (CC Team) of relevant leaders and experts will need to be formed promptly. A war room with the C&C Team will need to be organized as a special strategic unit with power to proactively and systematically lead and manage necessary changes with synergy. The team will be responsible for making urgent business decisions (from strategy, finance, HR and marketing) as well as taking care of all communications and updates with consistency, and particularly from a single source, to avoid misunderstanding and other risks.
- Before making any changes, businesses need to think carefully about their ‘core competency & capacity’ to assess strengths, capabilities and potentials of the organizations, human and other resources. Leaders and executives may need to rapidly answer these critical questions and find solutions :
1. What can our business do to solve the current situations/problems? Any
options?
2. How should we solve the problems? How can we survive? Any changes? What are priorities? Any potential risks?
3. What capacity do we have? How much can be done?
4. Who will be impacted?
5. What will the future look like? How can we revive and be resilient?


2. The second C is about COMPASSION or the heart work of all businesses during the crisis. Right now everyone is facing difficulties; people are anxious about their work-life, health, wealth and the future with multiple fears from the virus infection, employment insecurity or bankruptcy. As the leaders and managers or good human-beings, we need to genuinely show our compassion and care with empathy and positive mindset to our stakeholders (e.g. employees, customers, business partners and suppliers).

They may have direct or indirect impacts from the crisis. We need to adapt our plans to support their
well-beings. We also need to believe in the law of reciprocity and interdependency. We can only survive and live well because we help each other. At the end, our business survival depends on caring for each other. And, we can flourish if they thrive. Therefore, managing your business with compassion is a necessity, not an option.

- D:

- The last letter in the formula is D for Digital disruption & transformation.

- During this pandemic crisis, COVID-19 becomes the key driver and the catalyst for digital transformation. It suddenly disrupts how we lead and manage our business and daily lives without warning. Most of the past business disruptions happened because of technological advanment or quantum-leap innovation. This crisis has fast-forwarded future digital technology to occur now. It forces business to rapidly change and transform to digitalization. Therefore, digital transformation is no longer an option; now it becomes a strategic necessity for business survival.

- Many businesses are forced to opt for digital innovation and technologies (i.e. digital currency, IOT (internet-of-things), robotics and AI (Artificial Intelligence), go online using mobile applications, implement e-business, and turn to the cashless society, are becoming the new normal. By the force of the COVID-19, consumers are shopping online via mobile applications, payment via digital currencies. We become the cashless society since no one wants to touch bank notes because of the virus. Hospitals are using robotics to transport food and medical supplies for infected patients.

- So, the question during this crisis and the forced digital disruption is ‘Do you want to fight or flight?’. If you flight, do nothing and say goodbye to your business. If you fight and want to survive the crisis, your business will need to digitally transform and innovate. This is the only option and prompt decisionmaking is needed to act now.

- Finally, I wish you the best of luck for your business. Don’t forget my secret business formula ABCD #HowTo Manage during the crisis. Remember: “In every crisis, there are always opportunities.” Until we again, please take good care with my warmest regards, Dr. Suparak Suriyankietkaew, from College of Management, Mahidol University (CMMU)