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Introduction
“Kenya’s economy has shown considerable resilience to the enormous shock of the pandemic, and this year is expected to post one of the stronger growth rebounds in the region thanks to diversified sources of growth and sound economic policies and management,” Keith Hansen, World Bank Country Director for Kenya (Hansen, 2021 Dec).
This was rather unexpected given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe. Despite the positive outlook, the future course of the pandemic still remains a major cause of uncertainty. Given the challenges posed by the pandemic in economies, each sector, industry and business is engaged in strategic thinking: reimagining and reacting to the environmental shifts.
Strategic thinking; the art of coming up with alternative viable strategies or business models that deliver customer value (Stan, 2005). It accounts for economic realities, market forces and resources to create goals and plans for businesses to survive and thrive through intelligent opportunism and focusses on variables that influence long term progress and impact of the business. So what will the new normal for the business environment, post COVID-19, look like?
Businesses adjustments post COVID-19
Many employees say that the time spent on commuting and travelling have been redirected to productivity in their work. Plus with reduced commute fatigue their effectiveness is heightened. Employers have also found a positive edge in this shift, as it has enabled them to hire persons outside of their radii which has opened up a wider talent pool.
Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) is in the midst of a three-year transition that allows for more flexible work, including allowing much of the work force to go permanently remote (Ryan.T, 2022 May). Twitter, Square, Google, Microsoft, PayPal, Salesforce have lengthened their work from home option (SHRM, 2020) and other companies like Deloitte Africa have adopted a hybrid working model where employees split their time between in office and remote work (Deloitte Africa, 2021).
3. Transition from designing for efficiency to designing for resilience
Business models have been plagued, for a long time, with the challenge of rigidity. The resistance to change caused many businesses to collapse under the unprecedented conditions posed by the pandemic. Flexible organizations were able to respond better. As a result, many entities are now adopting flexible business models so as to have the ability to make whatever internal changes are necessary to respond effectively to the changing outward environment, as quickly as possible. Having an open minded approach, consistently collecting ideas from the employees and stakeholders, feedback from clients and having allowance for mid-course corrections gives the business a better chance at long term survival.
4. Service led economy
According to a World Bank report, we are on a trajectory to an economic revolution that will be service-led (World Bank, 2021 Dec 14). The services sector which includes four sub-sectors, the global innovator services (ICT, finance, and professional activities); the skill-intensive social services (education and health); the low skilled tradable services (transportation and storage, accommodation and food services, and wholesale trade); and the low-skilled domestic services (retail trade and personal services); has experienced high rates in scaling, innovation and spillovers in the post pandemic era. The robust growth in digital technology has largely enabled the services sector. As a result the job creation in the services sector is over-shadowing the manufacturing sector which has been pre-dominant before the pandemic. This is a new pattern of economic transformation particularly in the African nations.
5. Separation of critical skills and roles
In 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 47 million Americans voluntarily quit their jobs, an unprecedented mass exit from the workforce, spurred on by Covid-19, which is now widely being called the Great Resignation (US. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022). This has created major skill gaps in the work places as per a recent McKinsey Global Survey. In the initial adjustments resulting from the impact of the pandemic, employees had to adapt quickly to new systems and software. Employers now have a duty to find ways to up skill and reskill their employees to ensure functionality in the post-pandemic business models. For example, in sales digital marketing is now pre-requisite; management have to hone their skill in leading their teams and maintaining client relations virtually; and medics are forced to learn how to give diagnosis remotely.
Conclusion
In the new post COVID-19 business environment, many businesses and organizations will have to reinvent themselves to be strategic. Some of the areas and issues that may need adjusting include:
References
during the pandemic.www.shrm.org. https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/all-things-work/pages/small- businesses-get-creative-to-survive-during-the-pandemic.aspx