Turning the Coronavirus Crisis Into A (Digital) Opportunity

Efforts to contain the global pandemic of new coronavirus COVID-19 have brought the (western) world to a standstill. In efforts to preserve the capacity of their health systems, governments across the world have implemented social distancing measures and lockdowns, which brought about a billion people in quarantine, limiting their movement and arresting the economic activity. With restrictions of movement, both small and large business, aside for food supply based and pharmacies, suspended their physical retail activities, sending off their staff either to (un)paid leave or home for remote working where possible. Economic blow of the pandemic is particularly severe in industries like travel, hospitality and apparel. As the world turned upside down so have the seasonal sales, marketing and all the consumer facing plans and activities which propelled category, brand, marketing, creative & sales teams into a state of continuous crisis management.

As the world turned upside down, so have the seasonal sales, marketing and all the consumer facing plans and activities

For global organisations which operate across multiple geographies and countries, especially those who follow global brand as marketing strategy, and thus plan, manage and implement most consumer facing activities centrally, rising up to the challenge gets even more complex as they need to adapt to different situations in individual countries. As most contingency plans, if they existed, did not plan for such massive scale disruption, initial shock response was either to put everything on hold or try to re-route activities and investments in less impacted markets and channels, boosting e-commerce or e-retail where and if possible and hope things will soon get back to normal. However, as pandemic shows no signs of abating, organisations need to recognise that instead of temporary market cool-down (or cold drop) they might be looking into a market freeze that will extend beyond couple of weeks into more likely couple of months if not a year.

Organisations need to recognise that instead of temporary market cool-down (or cold drop) they might be looking into a market freeze

Instead of adjustment strategies, which consider different paths in same direction, prolonged market freeze will require from organisations to pivot - make fundamental changes to elements of their business model - whether it's customer segments, distribution channels or even rethink complete value proposition to the market. What is certain is that global health pandemic will usher new types of consumer expectations and behaviours that companies will need to realign with. Social distancing of today, might become a social norm of tomorrow.

The Silver Lining of the Pandemic

Keeping an eye on the future, while foot in the present, organisations should act decisively and realise that, at least in the short term, neither the world nor their activities will go ahead as previously planned. There is no going back to previous normal. Until there is a verifiable need for an organisational pivot, accepting the current market disruption, means accepting the need for realignment of roles and their activities. Namely, with frozen market activity and arrested consumer consumption, majority of consumer facing corporate roles simply loose their purpose. Since most if not all large corporates kept their office and consumer activity focused staff on the payroll, question emerges what will they work on?

Silver lining for organisations whose market activities are brought to a halt is that they now, finally, have time for introspective and internal capability building & upgrade.

As the economic activity across the world came to a stop, planet earth and the environment caught a breath of fresh air. This was one of the silver linings of the pandemic. Potential upside for organisations whose market activities are brought to a halt is that they now, finally, have time for introspective and internal capability building & upgrade. Obviously this applies only to those organisations whose balance sheets permit taking a pause without needing to go into cost cutting. But for most global organisations, profits from the previous years of economic growth should suffice for couple of quarters if not a whole year for maintaining business as usual. In addition, the announced government interventions for mitigation of the economic downturn make preserving organisational capacities at previous levels seems plausible.

Digital Capability Introspective

If there is one thing certain about what lies beyond current market uncertainty is that technology will remain a crucial part of human lives. If nothing else, the share of technology in human interactions can only increase not decrease. Remote working has reached a tipping point and it is a trend that from now on has gone mainstream and will become the part of new normal. Distance (emotional, cultural, communicational and geographical), which is an underlying element of remote working, will require new digital investments.

Distance (emotional, cultural, communicational and geographical) which is an underlying element of remote working will require new digital investments.

As people will increasingly work with distance among them, unspoken rules and informal information sharing that happens in office settings will need to be formalised within platform solutions with clear user roles, structures and process execution know-how embedded within the user interface. This is especially true for non-process driven functions such as brand, marketing, creative where the knowledge of how things get done sit within individual professionals' heads. Brand, creative, marketing development, brand management and branding execution exists only in the form of heuristics - tacit knowledge of selected individuals. Without being codified within softwares of other types of documented processes, brand building knowledge, and especially branding, creative and marketing execution methodologies, tactics, processes, and steps become operationally unavailable for other, now remote team members.

Without being codified within softwares of other types of documented processes, brand building knowledge, and especially branding, creative and marketing execution methodologies, tactics, processes, and steps become operationally unavailable for other, now remote team members.

With distance between them, and without quickly retrievable help from the colleague sitting next to you in the open office (knowhow holder) now remote workforce become highly unproductive, spending most days aligning either via chats or online sessions. Even when two or more connect, the know-how is shared, but again among couple of individuals, and its availability is again limited.

As digital capabilities will continue to play a significant part of organisational competitiveness, re-routing budgets into audit & improvement of execution might be the best short-term strategy there is.

Capitalising on the Pandemic

With retail operations on halt, product and campaign launches frozen perhaps indefinitely, many teams face uncertainty where they should focus, both their time and budgets, to make the best of the "status quo" situation. As digital capabilities will continue to play a significant part of organisational competitiveness, re-routing budgets into audit & improvement of teams' execution might be the best short-term strategy there is.

Most companies over-invested in consumer facing digital capabilities and under-invested in own team operational capabilities.

As most companies over-invested in consumer facing digital capabilities and under-invested in own team operational capabilities, setting time and money aside to transfer functional execution from email inboxes and excel sheets to tailored software solutions will yield returns in productivity increases, time and money savings once the markets are back up and business is back to new normal. As most brand organisations will try to play catch-up, trying to make up for quarter(s) lost, those who are most productive and most effective will capitalise on the pandemic the most, both in short-term and long term.

To capitalise on the pandemic, global brand, creative, e-commerce and marketing teams need to look at the silver lining of the situation and embrace the pause in consumer oriented activities to boost their own internal digital capabilities.

To capitalise on the pandemic, global brand, creative, e-commerce and marketing teams need to look at the silver lining of the situation and embrace the pause in consumer oriented activities to boost their own internal digital capabilities. 

How can we help?

If you work in a global organisation that follows global brand as a marketing strategy and work within central & global brand marketing, creative and e-commerce (D2C & eRetail) teams, we actually have quite some solutions & services that aim to boost your teams internal capabilities. SO DIGITAL focuses on helping global brands to align on the inside so they could win on the inside through delivery of tailored solutions and digital enablement services. Our flagship clients include Nike EMEA, Uber EMEA, JDE (Jacobs Douwe Egberts), TomTom and others. Learn more about us either by following our Linkedin page or having a chat with us.

If your teams are struggling with finding appropriate digital tools, our Digital Tool Enablement Services bridge the gap and bring your team up to speed with best selection of tools & services available on the market. Acting as "SaaS advisors" we take a deep dive into your functional needs, organisational limitations to find best possible tools for your team to work with. If you're have set of digital tools you're using, but your team isn't making the most out of them or they're struggling with embracing their full potential, our Digital Adoption services will help.