As I am writing this article, we are all witnessing a world-shattering event, a Coronavirus pandemic.
We are living in the interconnected world, and this pandemic is a proof of interdependence. From a technology point of view, in some respects it seems that coronavirus could be the straw that breaks the camel's back on the common belief of how the business is done and operated.
As companies around the globe are responding to Coronavirus with newly established sets of actions, I couldn't help but notice couple of blessings in disguise for businesses.
Think of nearshoring.
The near term is essential, but don't lose focus on the long term, which might even be worse. We must be realistic.
The biggest objective when doing a sales pitch to a Western European company is that they cannot work with remote engineers. Recently remote working became the best thing since sliced bread. Companies needed to reinvent their strategies and shift their thinking on doing business in house. Because, the only house we do our business in right now is the one that we live in.
Money, Money, Money.
Let’s spill the beans. In the swing of pandemic, we are all earning less, aren’t we? Unless we are Amazon Prime who is allegedly hiring 100,000 people in the United States due to highly increased consumer spending. Our services cost less than the services that a company would be able to find in Western Europe.
Remote working as a tool to discover hidden gems.
Impossible quickly diminished from our vocabulary as things that are out of our control such as pandemic and earthquakes started directing our decision-making process. The idea of open space offices only as well as close space offices only will atrophy. Coronavirus pandemic has given us a proof that we can work from wherever we want to work from! This way of working is many times biased against by business owners or CEO’s in the first place. But then, it also gives an insight of two values that we are looking for in all people, and those are reliability and self-discipline. This is a perfect path on discovering the two.
Outbound sales just got their 5 minutes of fame.
Everything has been cancelled; conferences, business trips, business lunches, coffees, meet ups. What to do in this situation but to rely on our phones, laptops, Zoom, Teams, Whatsapp, LinkedIn, Facebook. We are all stuck at home, but technology invented in the world prior to Coronavirus is still amazing and usable.
Shift in strategic thinking
I hold a strong belief that every cloud has a silver lining. Coronavirus will have a long-lasting economic effect but will also lead to a more fundamental change. Just now in few days we were able to do a matrix of crisis planning, effective communication, workforce while carefully listening and adapting to Croatian Institute of Public Health. This is a crisis, time to reflect on our doing, time to create and reinvent the way we behave and the way we do business. This storm is here to form us and make us stronger, and it is up to us to adjust our sails and do the best we can.
