The past few weeks have been unlike anything our economy has ever experienced. As the world has gone under lockdown, nearly every business has been dramatically impacted. For a few businesses, demand has exploded and they are struggling to keep up with the amount of new business. For others, their businesses have either been completely or virtually shut down as employees can’t report for work and customers can’t visit the business. Many businesses have had to quickly learn how to operate as a distributed organization and serve customers with minimal physical interaction.
This is our reality today, but all organizations need to be planning for a future that won’t look like today and probably won’t look like 2019 either.
This week we will look at four steps that every organization needs to take in planning for the future, and those steps need to be taken for three planning horizons.
The four planning steps are:
scenario planning,
situation analysis,
business modeling, and
strategy development.
The three planning horizons are:
“the right now”: how to survive the pandemic
“the restart”: how to relaunch after the lockdown, and
“the new reality”: what is our business next year and beyond
For each day this week we will look at each planning step, considering how to perform that step for each planning horizon. If you need help with any of this, please let me know.
As Proverbs 16:3 tells us “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.”