“Re-starting your business is becoming less about simply reviving it, but considering very carefully, how (and more importantly, if) your original business model fits into a changed and radically altered societal mindset.”
Every business owner would agree that it is not only the past 12 months of lockdown that have been devastating to their business, but now there is the added insult of uncertainty for 2021.
But forge ahead we must.
Dion Chang, founder of Flux Trends, believes that when we do, we need to frame our business challenges using the BANI acronym – brittleness, anxiety, nonlinearity and incomprehensibility, and be specifically mindful of the last two letters: Nonlinearity and incomprehensibility.
In a previous article on anticipatory grief Dion wrote that, “re-starting your business is becoming less about simply reviving it, but considering very carefully, how (and more importantly, if) your original business model fits into a changed and radically altered societal mindset.”
And therein lies the key. Is your current business model still relevant to a radically changed world?
If you embrace nonlinearity and incomprehensibility, you might need to come to terms with the harsh reality that your original business model – or some of it – is frozen in a pre-pandemic state and needs reframing. But if nonlinearity and incomprehensibility are all you have to work with, how do you strategise for goalposts that are not anchored?
This is where transient, short-term strategies have to be tested. There are no fixed rules, and this state of limbo will continue well into 2021.
It’s time to adopt the sailing manoeuvre of tacking: the art of turning the bow (front) of the boat through the headwind so that the wind changes from one side of the boat to the other side. One way of ensuring your business is best prepared and better placed to forge ahead in the right direction is by means of the Futurist in Residence service by Flux Trends. Futurist in Residence provides businesses with access to over fifteen years of local and global trend research, forecasting and future-thinking insights distilled specifically for the organisation to keep abreast of the latest business and consumer trends to maintain a competitive advantage.
The depth of uncertainty for the rest of the year is unsettling, which is why long-term strategies are now futile. No one knows how the world will emerge from the pandemic, so the best you can do now is ensure your business survives, whatever it takes. In most cases that means trial by error: test new services, new product offerings, new communication avenues and language. Some ideas might even seem illogical or off-centre from your core business model, but if they help weather the storm, it’s all that really matters.
Who knows, you might ditch the transient strategy when the pandemic is under control, or you might just find you’ve inadvertently pivoted your business into something more appropriate for a post-pandemic world.
But you’ll never know unless you tack into unchartered waters.
