Lessons from the crisis, and tips to navigate a future that looks different than expected.
From the corner office to the shop floor, 2020 has been an exceptionally tough, black-swan-event year, and we’re only halfway through it.
By Chris Stevens for Industry Week
graphic: © Chakrapong Worathat | Dreamstime.com
The sheer amount of disruption, both good and bad, has turned our kitchen tables into 8-to-5 desks and conference rooms, and many parents into teachers overnight. With summer in full swing, and college students adjusted to their remote internships, the new normal is starting to feel more like “business as usual.”
As we reflect on the year so far, there are some key lessons learned and tips to navigate future crises.
1. Embracing digitalization
The pressure to become a digitally focused company has surpassed critical mass as a significant amount of the workforce shifted to working from home in recent months. With the frequency of disruptive events on the rise, we can no longer have the mentality of if a disruption may occur, but rather when. To address these shifts head on, companies will need to embrace plugging the digitalization wave into most, if not all, of their business systems. Most importantly, it is more than just collecting data, but rather, shifting entire systems and processes to digitally enable work to continue regardless of working location. From a manufacturing standpoint, adopters of systems that enable the integration into digital manufacturing services will reap benefits such as increased speed to market, automated quoting systems, on-demand production, consistent quality when using a single supplier with in-house production capabilities, and more.
2. Building a disruption response plan
This is similar to business continuity planning but with an added mindset of determining what change in business or social norm would have the largest impact on the business in this black-swan-event year. Business continuity has long focused on fires and natural disasters, or financial troubles, but few have a page on a global supply chain freeze. In recent months, however, the top-down push for COVID-19 responses and policies have moved through the supply chain requiring companies to have a plan. This introduces a great opportunity to develop teams and general responses to events happening around the world to ensure a rapid response. In the future, responses will need to be hours, not weeks, as time is critical in ensuring the safety and health of employees, as well as the outlook of the company.
