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Operations

Get help charting a course to the future of your business

Continuity is a comfort, especially in times of crisis. Your customers depend on you to maintain not just your service, but also your standards. As such, no matter how your business changes, the show must go on.

It's a priority for any firm to meet customer demands effectively and efficiently. However, businesses are increasingly finding that doing so during a pandemic is particularly challenging.

Potential issues

Mitigating risks to business continuity is your primary concern during the outbreak. Issues and challenges need to be recognised and dealt with rapidly, including control of the cost base to create headroom.

Reacting in real time requires an understanding of the current situation in order to make decisions quickly. Management information must be accessible and accurate, and a rapid increase or decrease in demand makes forecasting, inventory and capital management critical.

Adapting to the circumstances while trying to create a greater certainty of demand and supply in rapidly evolving market conditions is key, alongside adjusting the indirect cost base and support functions.

Actions to consider

  • Actions to consider

    Assess

    Understand the potential impact of the pandemic by moving quickly to assess how your operations will be affected. The more you can foresee the unexpected, the more likely you will be ready to meet any challenge.

  • Actions to consider

    Protect

    Don’t be afraid to make imperfect decisions to reduce the cost base and protect the business. Define the key decisions you have to make and ensure that you have the best management information you can to support them, but accept that not all your choices will turn out to have been the right ones once the pandemic is over. Focus effort primarily on rapid cost reduction and cash optimisation and management.

  • Actions to consider

    Restore

    The current market conditions caused by the outbreak are temporary. Determine how you can come out of the Protect phase with pace and momentum so that you can maximise any opportunity available to you. Understand how your external markets may have changed and how you can bet respond to them.

Questions to ask

  • Do you have the right, timely MI to make critical decisions?
  • How volatile is customer demand and how flexible is your cost base?
  • Are you sufficiently prepared for shortages and price volatility for your resources to outlast the pandemic?

 

  • Does your network have the capacity for your whole team to work from home at the same time?
  • Are your communication channels sufficient and do your employees read and understand what you send them?
  • How can you take advantage of any changes in your market or opportunities within your Operating Model to reimagine your post COVID-19 business?

alan-dale.png

 

“Volatile times call for real-time understanding of where your business is at, the options available to it and the courage to take early action supported by clear and informed decision making.”

Alan Dale, Partner

Contacts

Alan Dale
Alan Dale
Partner London
Email address Alan Dale VCard
View full profile
Oliver Bridge
Oliver Bridge
Director, Business Consultant London
Email address https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliverbridge/ Oliver Bridge VCard
View full profile
Manu Sharma
Manu Sharma
Partner, Head of Cyber Security Resilience London
Email address https://uk.linkedin.com/in/manusharmauk Manu Sharma VCard
View full profile

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More practical guidance for your response

Customers and suppliers

Keeping them informed, secure and prepared for change

Customers and suppliers

Liquidity, contingency and claims

Ensuring your stability for the future

Liquidity, contingency and claims

People

Keeping them safe, motivated and enabled to do their jobs

People

Regulatory

Stay compliant now and in the future

Regulatory

Technology

Managing your stability and digital risk

Technology

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