Business is full of trends and events that are said to change everything but actually barely move the dial. The Covid-19 pandemic will be one of those few events that moves the dial in a big way. The United Nations summed up the scale of the impact estimating that 195 million jobs worldwide will be lost. The new normal will likely impact on many aspects of society in ways hard to imagine today. This article uses a programme and procurement lens to identifying three changes we foresee as becoming the new normal.
The current changes most organisations are going through are mainly short-term measures, put in place to mitigate the impact of the pandemic. These changes may represent a better way of working but due to their nature need refining, to take them from short-term mitigation into sustainable solutions. Many organisations will have already started thinking about the next phase. Taking advantage of the new normal, organisations need to be considered and purposeful to maximise value. Changewell recommends following a simple change management process to take advantage of future opportunities and minimise risks over the next few months, years and decades.
The first new normal – flexible working
With the proliferation of laptops, video conferencing and cloud computing many organisations had already taken steps to enable flexible working. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has put those activities into overdrive, Aviva for example has sourced roughly 4,000 laptops to enable customer facing staff to work remotely during the lockdown. On top of this hard investment we at Changewell have witnessed a culture shift in organisations, with managers getting used to staff working remotely and breaking down the trust and communications barrier that is associated with working from home. This cultural change should not be underestimated with the current approach to work potentially being turned on its head. Changewell spoke to a senior manager in a major engineering firm, who described they were expecting a ‘new normal’ of staff having ‘working from office’ days as opposed to ‘working from home’.
These two shifts in the market have opened the door to a re-think of the office. Changewell expects more companies will be revising their work from home policies and a proliferation of innovations will come to the fore such as: a rise in virtual outsourcing, reduced capital spend on offices, a wider resource pool for new talent etc. Companies seeking to sustain and build on recent adaptations will need to take a systematic approach to flexible working, see below Changewell’s nine steps approach to remote working. We’re asking, how is your organisation going to capitalise on this investment and embrace flexible working as part of the new normal?
The second new normal – supply chain resilience
Companies will begin to prioritise the latent risks in their supply chains. The first thing many companies have learned from this situation is that they don’t have an adequate understanding of their supply chains and associated risk. Companies will have increased their supply chain knowledge but will need to take a systematic approach to maintain and build on this new understanding.
A sustainable approach to managing complex modern supply chains needs to be data-led. Forming a digital supply chain map (often possible with existing or off the shelf software packages) is optimal as it can then be maintained and analysed to inform decision making. Step two will be to utilise analytics to understand the following: current supply chain performance, forecast supply chain performance, and conduct scenario gaming where major disruptions can be simulated allowing companies to quickly complete ‘what if’ calculations as required. Companies are likely to start proactively mitigating risks and leveraging opportunities in their supply chains based on situation dependent risk tolerances. This will need to be clearly reflected in organisations’ strategic risks and, given adequate attention and investment. We’re asking, how will your organisations leverage their new appreciation for supply chain resilience in the new way of working?
The third new normal – enhanced prioritisation
Speeding up previous trends and fostering innovation, the Covid-19 pandemic has crystallised priorities for many organisations. This clarification will enable companies to become more productive as they reduce activities that are not core to their values. This will require a clear re-appreciation of their operating model, how will your organisation ensure that this new focus isn’t lost?
To enable enhanced prioritisation consider the following areas of focus which will need to be altered to maximise value:
- The value chain must be focused and embody your priorities. The value chain is the method through which your organisation or department delivers value to its customers.
- Organisations need to re-evaluate the following enabling activities; suppliers, locations, organisation structure, information tools and management systems that underpin that value chain.
See below a useful diagram to help visualise this tried and tested method which will enable a systemic approach to this new clarity concerning prioritisation across all business operations (Reference: Operating Model Canvas, Campbell).
The three themes identified here offer a Programme and Procurement lens on the new normal in response to the scale of change that Covid-19 has initiated. Changewell will continue to work closely with organisations over the coming months and years to provide the procurement, commercial and programme leadership necessary to deliver change programmes. Organisations will not look the same following Covid-19, the pandemic that changed everything.