All the businesses must be ready to respond to the change happening around. Change can be a change in process, change in technology, change due to natural calamity or disaster, and many more. The way to react by the business will not be the same. Every business will react in a different way since all businesses operate differently. If we take an example of today’s COVID-19 times all the businesses are operating at reduced capacity, making most of the resources they have be it human resources or technology. It is very important for organizations to know how to react to the situation, adapt as quickly as possible, and anticipate changes to come so that the business is operationally ready and robust.

Let us look at different instances:

Scenario 1 – If delivering your services remotely is not possible then you should focus on REACT

If remote support is not possible then organizations need to re-team their available resources around the new area of operation and shift priorities to work that is more important. This will help you be more outcome focussed. It will also avoid time on non-value adding activities. Since you must work with limited resources prioritization will be the key. So teams need to react immediately to the situation and plan work and resources.

Scenario 2 – If delivering services remotely is possible, but with limited digital technology alliance, then you should focus on ADAPT

If your team has basic equipment like laptops, phones, desktops, etc. then the immediate step would be to encourage work from home. You should help the team to adapt to this new work pattern. The leaders need to communicate regularly with the team. Leaders should promote employee engagement and support peer-to-peer support networks. This will help the employees to be more productive.

Scenario 3 – Teams are equipped with the technology and your team is continuing to deliver the service uninterrupted, then organizations should focus on ANTICIPATE.

Employees of your organization are seamlessly working on all the projects and delivering results. They are comfortable with the work from home culture. They have adapted to the digital way of doing business. Still there is always an opportunity to go over and above. Now it is the time that your organization should predict the future changes in supply and demand that they would face both short and long terms. Accordingly, organizations should invest in the skills needed for the future.

So, the key to successfully managing operations is – REACT, ADAPT and ANTICIPATE. Spend some time today thinking about, managing, optimizing, and automating business processes so that when the business resumes to a normal pace, your organization will be able to deliver better, more predictable results, at a much faster rate and with fewer resources.

Written & Compiled by Faber Mayuri