We are into the early days of 2021. Individuals and companies are laying strategies to recover from the devastating effects of COVID-19 and possibly return to profitability.

Although there seem to be no clear signs to the end of COVID-19 and its restricting effect on lives and businesses, there is generally a ray of hope now more than ever.

Wealthy countries have started mass vaccinations signaling a glimmer of hope to the soon defeat of the pandemic. According to the Africa Centre for Disease Control, Africa is equally set to commence vaccination in the second quarter of 2021.

With the possible end of COVID-19 insight, countermeasures such as social distancing, a ban on gatherings, travels, and closure of some businesses will soon be lifted, and life will return to normal.

This is a window of hope that should inspire businesses to strategise to become active market players. As we zoom into the year, here are some insights you need to examine for your 2021 business survival and sustainability plan.

Examine the relevance of your business strategy. 

For any business to effectively participate and assert its influence in the market, a close examination of the current business model, market share, customer needs, and future needs is necessary.

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What COVID-19 has done or accelerated, is a rapid change in customer consumption behaviours in response to most products and services currently on the market.

January could be the best time to retrospectively examine whether your business strategy still addresses the customer’s needs.

A look at the vision, mission, and company products and services, will enable you to tweak your strategy to ensure that your business fits the post-COVID-19 era.

In tweaking your strategy, Gleb, T., (2020), advises that you be quick because the virus’s effect on businesses will not go away soon.

Remember that the pandemic has affected most organization’s revenues streams, increased operations costs, and business survival uncertainties. Therefore, strategically budgeting and ensuring that the business survives and grows even if minimally, is very important.

That will mean having in place a budget that will facilitate customer attraction and retention. Examine your strategy if it still meets where you want to take the business.

Pay attention to customer sentiments.

In our previous articles, we have alluded to the fact that customers are the lifeblood of any business. As the year begins, what are you doing to attract, engage, and retain customers?

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This is critically important for your business survival. Ensure you have a strategy for customer acquisition and retention. Are you going to offer discounts or VIP after-sales services? Is your customer service strategy focusing on short-term profitability or long-term value-based relationship with your customers? If you want to better your customer attraction and retention strategy, we are here to help you achieve just that. Contact us, and we will walk with you to your dreamland.

But for now, you should pay extra attention to your customers, just as Ivars, L, and Dmitry, P, advise that interacting with them has both short- and long-term effects on your business.

Manage the present with the future in mind. 

No one expected that COVID-19 would emerge and destroy lives and businesses. But it happened. Even forward-thinking entrepreneurs were caught off guard, and the scars from the pandemic will live on for decades. It has always been known that certain businesses would remain unharmed by economic downturns: real estate and health sectors, for example. People will still need a place to live in. People will still need to go to the doctor. But we have all learned the hard lesson that no business or industry is an exception to the rule.

The pandemic has taught us that individuals and businesses must learn to manage the present with the future in mind – not to plan for only today but equally months or years ahead. Like a thief in the night, a crisis could befall your company, organisation, or team when systems get disrupted.

HCI has no definite formula that you can copy and paste, but planning for emergency funds, staff health, development, or at worst death or material loss should be top of your list.

Engaged staff will give you results. Does your team need job description and employee expectations reviews, reskilling, and upskilling?

Ensure your organisation takes care of the employee needs so that they can take care of your customers and overall business.

A contingency plan for your business, especially for 2021, according to Stephen. S should be tailored to reducing damages to your business in case of optimal eventualities.

Final Note

Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity, VUCA. This acronym influences personal and business choices in today’s world of business. As echoed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb “We know from chaos theory that even if you had a perfect model of the world, you’d need infinite precision in order to predict future events. With socio-political or economic phenomena, we don’t have anything like that.” 

With VUCA in mind, we should all look at the post-pandemic situation as an opportunity for growth and to spread our wings. This is also a perfect time for business leaders to establish their reputations as influential captains.

You and I can make 2021 a better year. Please share this article such that it benefits many more individuals, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. Let’s change the narrative of Africa together.

Happy 2021. May the year be productive and prosperous.