The Sunday News
Mugove Hamadziripi
IN every crisis or disaster, there are decisions and actions that can make or break any company or institution. As always, fortune favours the prepared, agile, and decisive.
Zimbabwe businesses, just like in other countries, are undergoing a huge amount of uncertainty especially on how to survive post-Covid-19. The economic impact of the pandemic needs to be addressed. The virus has been the key challenge facing our country today, and it had a significant impact on the economy.
Yet, we must keep in mind that in the end, its effects have been temporary, and it will be “business as usual”. There is a demand across all institutions especially workplaces for effective leadership which is level-headedness to lead the companies.
Put in simple terms, that means, right now, in 2021 your business, corporate or SME, should be embracing a proactive outlook and seizing every opportunity that comes its way. If the Zimbabwean business community does not rise to the challenge, the fallout from Covid-19 will be regrettable. From my experience working with the corporate world, here are a few generic approaches Zimbabwean companies can adapt to in the post-Covid-19 scenario:
Maintaining the “Winner Man” mentality
The virus has been a terrible occurrence for the whole world. As we all rise from the dust, that does not mean that you or your company should wallow or meekly accept defeat. Instead, we need to see the adversity it brings as a challenge to rise up and overcome.
There is every need to review your processes and make them slicker to ensure you can get the job done quicker. It may even lead you to question your purchasing decisions such as whether you even need to spend money on certain things or are they just a nice-to-have. Also, take the time to reflect on where you can add the most value to your clients, and how you can improve the lives of your employees in the tough times we are in today and into the future.
Remember that if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well, regardless of the situation.
Reviewing legacy systems and operations
On a more practical level, companies through their “Joshuas”. (I can humbly call them the Joshua Generation. The generation of Joshua were those who would enter the Promised Land without the bondages of the past). You need to take the time to work on your essential computer systems to function better by improving their resilience and fail-over, by ensuring you have a standby in case of a hardware or systems failure. Speaking of which, is it time to do a review of your legacy systems? Yes, I suppose.
Alternatively, you might need to update your company security posture (An organisation’s security posture (or cybersecurity posture) is the collective security status of all software, hardware, services, networks, information, vendors and service providers, UpGuard 2021). Resources permitting, one can even go one gear forward and rip out your company legacy phone systems and replace it with an internet-based communication platform.
Re-evaluating your company approach
Rather than being frustrated by Covid-19 and its ripple effects, let us as Zimbabweans and as a people, instead see it as a chance to look inwardly at ourselves as professionals and the companies we represent. Now is the time to re-evaluate strategies, make necessary changes, see what works and get better results. The Covid-19 period has given us an opening to behave differently.
Take advantage of it! At this juncture, you need to go back through your business “to-do” list and undertake a thorough review of the important but less urgent items that you have left gathering dust since early 2020 when lockdowns were effected the world over. Typical things that often get overlooked during normal periods of activity include basic business activities. These might be the writing up of job descriptions or checking employee progress in regards to personal goal settings, training sessions and or roadmap development.
Strategy communications assessment is imperative
Most Zimbabwean companies do not have business continuity plans. A business continuity plan (BCP) outlines procedures and instructions an organisation must follow in the face of disaster, whether fire, flood or cyber-attack, and in this case, Covid-19 pandemic. Given the history of natural disaster bequeathing Zimbabwe, it is curious to learn that so many Zimbabwean companies lack a business continuity plan when calamity calls.
To those with BCPs, if you have not reviewed and updated them yet, then this is the opportune time to do so, and immediately to ensure they are fit for purpose and to minimise the effect of the pandemic and other eventualities on your business operations.
-Mugove Hamadziripi is a renowned and seasoned Development Communications specialist with Erongo Consulting Group, www.erongoconsultinggroup.com, and can be reached at [email protected].
