The New Normal
When does the “new normal” just become “normal”? I don’t know about you, but for the last year I have been guilty of saying “when things get back to normal…”, fully expecting that life as we knew it would resume. But here we are a year later and nothing is like it was pre-COVID. We have seen businesses thrive, and we have seen businesses fail. You could blame circumstances on the failures, and to be sure there is likely some truth in that. But why did some businesses not only survive, but thrive? Were they just lucky?
No, they were not simply lucky, I think they were smart. They pivoted and adapted their strategies to fit a quickly changing environment. They didn’t sit back and wait for things to fit their business model, they changed their model to fit what was happening around them. They saw a need and moved quickly to fill it. This is somewhat easier for smaller companies without huge corporate structures and boards, and layers upon layers of approval processes, and yet we also saw large companies pivot. Look at all the big name clothing companies that quickly rolled out face masks, pivoting to meet the current (and ongoing!) need. It can be easy to be complacent and just cruise along, reacting when things happen rather than being proactive and planning a few steps ahead. What COVID did, however, was forced everyone to react. I don’t know that anyone could really be prepared for a global pandemic. But the companies that were more nimble and pivoted quickly were able to rise to the challenge.
I dare say that we are returning to “normal”, but maybe it’s just a different kind of normal. Maybe for some businesses it took a global pandemic to force them to adopt technology and embrace life in a more technology-driven age. It showed us that we have to embrace change and be quick on our feet, pivoting to update and improve upon our businesses practices in order to thrive in the “new normal”.
About the Author
Amanda Bullock is a consultant with Morrison, working primarily in our Business & Accounting Advisory practice. To get in touch with Amanda, please find contact information for Morrison here.