Question

Recently, the Coronavirus presented as one or more of these forces. Name the forces which came into play with the Coronavirus pandemic and discuss your observation of a small, medium, and/or large company's reaction to the marketing environment created. Did the company appear passive, proactive or reactive? What is the basis for your opinion?

Answer 1

COVID-19 forces companies to adopt lucid work structure: Experts

They said that the traditional department-based hierarchical model may not work in these times and companies have been thinking about the best possible way to deliver productivity.

There has been an increase in lucid structure of employment where people have been asked to do all level jobs irrespective of the designations mostly in IT, FMCG, e-commerce, and retail sectors due to the disruptions caused by COVID-19, according to experts.

“It is largely because of the shortage of staff and also to ensure that work keeps going, people have been asked to do all level jobs irrespective of the designation etc … It comprises execution jobs at all levels and categories, for example writing codes in an IT company or even delivery of goods in case of an commerce industry,” TeamLease Services Business Head- Industrial Manufacturing and Engineering and General Staffing, Sudeep Sen told PTI

The bottom line is that everyone should know and have the capability to perform jobs which are key to the business functions and also adjacent roles, does it mean that there is no need to specialists, certainly there is a need and it shall always be there, however, in situations like pandemic times, with less of employees or remote work environment, it is important to be hands on and be ready to do all jobs, he added.

Echoing the view, CIEL HR Services Director and CEO Aditya Mishra opined that this is a very new trend for companies outside IT and engineering.

The rapidly evolving threat around the COVID-19 virus, commonly referred to as coronavirus, is impacting the business and investor community across the world. The global and interconnected nature of today’s business environment poses serious risk of disruption of global supply chains that can result in significant loss of revenue and adversely impact global economies.

The impact on the global economy may increase depending on the extent of geographic spread of the virus. However, the pandemic has already negatively impacted the global economy as a whole.

Traditional resilience planning doesn’t do enough to prepare for a pandemic. Learn how organizations can improve their response.

The rapidly evolving threat around the COVID-19 virus, commonly referred to as coronavirus, is impacting the business and investor community across the world. The global and interconnected nature of today’s business environment poses serious risk of disruption of global supply chains that can result in significant loss of revenue and adversely impact global economies.

The impact on the global economy may increase depending on the extent of geographic spread of the virus. However, the pandemic has already negatively impacted the global economy as a whole.

This article presents insights and recommendations covering:

1. Enterprise response
2. How to plan and respond differently to pandemics
3. Key takeaways and next steps for leaders

As the event evolves, we are seeing companies take measured approaches to safeguard employees and mitigate financial and operational exposure. For example, at the time of publication of this paper, many multinational businesses have reduced output of facilities and or suspended operations in affected regions, as travel restrictions and mandatory social distancing and homeworking have been invoked. Companies and governments around the world continue to closely monitor the situation.

While cyber risk is a relatively recent consideration in resilience planning, companies have long maintained various resilience plans for business continuity, disaster recovery and crisis management. These plans, while effective for a range of business disruptions, may fall short during a global crisis such as coronavirus or other pandemic events.

Moreover, companies typically have less incentive to invest in distinct pandemic management capabilities since pandemics are lower-probability events (the last major pandemic, H1N1 influenza or swine flu, occurred in 2009). And while firms likely refreshed resilience plans in response to the H1N1 pandemic, it is important to consider differences in today’s environment.

For example, cyber criminals may be more likely to target a situation where security operations centers are largely managed in the affected region. Given the high severity, potential human impacts and greater contagion effect that these events can pose on the ongoing viability of operations, companies must think through the implications to their businesses and develop specific crisis management annexures around pandemic threats. These annexures can serve as critical mechanisms by which companies can coordinate response with federal, state and local authorities, in addition to their own incident response and crisis management framework and protocols, to provide an effective response to these events.

How to plan and respond differently to pandemics

There are significant differences between business disruptions that are caused by natural, human-made, technology or operational failures and those caused by pandemic events. These differences persist due to the potential increased scale, severity and duration of pandemic events, necessitating the need for organizations to expand beyond traditional resilience planning strategies. Companies must incorporate pandemic planning considerations into existing resilience management activities to provide a comprehensive response and to provide continuity for their most critical products and services.

Additionally, companies should consider establishing pandemic-specific policies and procedures, capabilities for employee communications, telecommuting and personal/family leave to minimize disruptions. Due to their duration, impacts on personnel in the regions that absorb additional work cannot be overstated, from the start of the pandemic to several weeks in, when contractor resources can start to meaningfully contribute. Scale can also vary, and to date it has been regionally concentrated with some global impacts; we have not seen a fully global crippling pandemic yet, although this remains a possibility

Coronavirus: Ecommerce crisis management for today and tomorrow

How retailers, manufacturers and wholesalers are responding to unprecedented challenges while taking advantage of new opportunities to increase online sales.

The first period started in early March 2020 and will continue through the lift of the quarantines. With this, came uncertainty and panic.

So, when it comes to marketing and consumers, there are three marketing hurdles that the majority of businesses, those that offer non-essential products and services, must overcome, communicate and address in their current advertising and messaging. The first, “Right now, I only need the essentials (food, water and shelter), so tell me why I should buy your product now?”

The second is: “I fear I may catch the COVID-19 virus during any unnecessary interactions, and my primary concern is protecting myself and my family from being infected. So, tell me how you’re going to make my interaction with you safe and how you’re going to take every precaution to ensure you are not going to infect me with the virus?”

Lastly, retailers must address the question: “I am afraid to spend money now, especially on non-essentials; how will you address that by offering me deep discounts, value, free delivery, deferred payments, no interest financing, etc.?”

It’s important to note if you do persuade a consumer to purchase during this period, adding a humanitarian message to your communication and offer will strengthen your brand and build post-COVID-19 loyalty

Reactive
The reactive innovation strategy is used by companies:

which are followers
have a focus on operations
take a wait-and-see approach
look for low-risk opportunities.
They copy proven innovation and use entirely incremental innovators. An example is Ryanair, a budget airline which has successfully copied the no-frills service model of Southwest Airlines.