Brain teaser: how to proceed after corona?

If your company is in a hard-hit sector, you have been busy with crisis management. If your company has benefited from increasing demand, then you have been thinking about capacity expansion and quality control.

In both cases, the question now arises: how will you move forward in the coming years? Can you pick up where you left off, will your company drastically innovate, or might growth prove temporary?

Many organisations and people struggle with the question of how to move forward. When searching for answers and setting a course for the coming years, many uncertain factors come your way. The trick is not to run away from these uncertainties, but to try to get a picture of them so that you can take them into account when determining strategy.

A few examples of those uncertainties:

• Is sustainability policy accelerating or are we falling back on existing policies? Many companies and governments think we should come out of the crisis greener, but at the same time the energy transition and the nitrogen problem are proving to be unruly issues.
• Have we got the pandemic under control and will it stay that way, or will several pandemics follow in the coming years?
• Will economic growth pick up or will we continue to suffer from the 2020 economic blow for years to come? And for how long then?
• How will consumer behaviour evolve? Will we look differently at consumption or will we quickly fall back into old patterns? And will we continue to work from home or will we return to the office full-time?

Make the future imaginable

If you can picture the future, you have a picture of the world in which your business will need to be successful. Then you can think about the direction and actions you can take. Scenarios are based on fundamental uncertainties.

For possible futures after the corona crisis, you can choose two of the above uncertainties. (Of course, the choice of uncertainties depends entirely on your business and sector).

Scenario 1: From rain in the drip

Unfortunately, we will not be rid of pandemics in the coming years. New corona variants continue to spread and a new virus is even emerging. Much time and money goes into fighting the pandemic and caring for the sick. As a result, we do not pay enough attention to strengthening sustainability policies. Managing climate change, society and the economy are negatively affected.

Scenario 2: Seize the day

Variants of the corona virus continue to spread around the world and not all can be controlled with vaccines. So we keep strict rules on contact for years to come and the 1.5-metre society remains. At the same time, a collective realisation that we need to take better care of our environment is penetrating. This leads to a lot of support for investing more in an ambitious sustainability policy.

Scenario 3: Head in the sand

The pandemic has now been suppressed thanks to effective vaccines. Society has regained its freedom. This has led to such relief among people that everyone is busy making up for what has been missed in recent years. We go to the office en masse again, we take even more long-haul flights that before and buy lots of stuff. There is little support or money for paying attention to sustainability in the process.

Scenario 4: Green is the new gold

After several years, the pandemic was fortunately brought under control by effective vaccines. These not only prevented infections, but also nipped the emergence of new variants in the bud. This means that less money has to go to support business and society and that those resources are now being used for sustainability, with climate control and biodiversity spearheading the policy.

With these real future scenarios, you can ask yourself what role you can play for your customers and stakeholders. And how your company can be successful in those futures. This way, you will be prepared for different developments. Do this exercise with your team, colleagues, managers and engage in a conversation with each other!

Coming up with strategic options

Creating scenarios is one thing, choosing a strategy and formulating actions are necessary next steps. Which strategic options does your company have in each of the scenarios and which ones will you actually start working on? What do you want to set in motion now to be well prepared for the future? Which ‘early warning’ signals should you watch out for to see in which direction your market is developing?

Once the scenarios are finished, strategic management begins. Initiatives need to be launched or choices need to be made now in order to fulfil ambitions for several years from now. Making scenarios is not an optional exercise!