The outbreak of the new type of coronavirus pneumonia will be a very important event in the history of the development of Chinese companies. The importance of this incident may be even higher than that of SARS. And its impact is twofold, including the positive side and the negative side.
From a short-term perspective, the impact on the company is mainly negative, including the company’s rapid cash flow and a cliff drop in revenue and profits. But in the long run, it has a positive impact. Macroscopically, although my country’s economic scale and economic strength have grown rapidly in recent years, China has become the world’s second largest economy, and it may develop into the world’s largest economy in the near future. But one of the problems is very prominent: the improvement of the level of my country’s enterprises is not in proportion to the increase in the total economic scale of my country.
On the one hand, compared with Western companies that have gone through more than 300 years of development, the development history of private enterprises in my country is relatively short, and there are only a handful of century-old stores. The enterprise has not yet refined a successful management model, and its contribution to management is very small. With the rapid growth of my country’s economic strength and economic scale, there is an urgent need to raise the level of development of enterprises to a corresponding level. On the other hand, due to the rapid economic development of the country and the many opportunities, some companies appear impetuous in the development process and are eager to grasp the “fruits”. Of course, this approach has its rationality, but if the company develops to a certain scale, it still pays too much attention to growth, too much attention to scale, too much attention to the role of someone, instead of struggling, not practicing basic skills, and not establishing basic skills. The mechanism is very dangerous.
Therefore, from this perspective, the epidemic is actually a sharpening stone in the process of improving the level of Chinese enterprises. It is like the “Pill Alchemy Furnace of the Supreme Master”, to test whether the enterprise is a “Sage of Heaven”. If not, some companies will be eliminated as a result; if they are, after practicing in the “alchemy furnace”, they will reflect and sort out a management model suitable for Chinese companies, and they will become “hot eyes”. National and even global leading enterprises.
The crisis brought about by the epidemic is a good time for Chinese companies to make up a lesson, turn bad things into good things, and turn short-term negatives into long-term positives. Companies that withstand the practice will have an advantage in future competition.
Business growth essential: the Basic Skills to improve risk prevention and control capabilities
in the enterprise, not just the disease, any sign of trouble may be a risk. Therefore, there must be a strong sense of risk and crisis.
I am very impressed with a domestic company? Tencent. Last year, when I was invited to visit Tencent’s headquarters, I heard one thing: when WeChat was just successful, the middle and high level of the company began to seriously think about the same question every year: what product will be in the future Replace WeChat? This is crisis awareness and risk awareness.
In fact, many companies believe that with high risks and high returns, the more risky things they face, the more opportunities they must seize. This is true, but it is only for small companies, because when the company was first established, it was small and faced with high-risk things, if it was right, it would succeed. However, when the scale of the enterprise increases and develops into a medium-sized or even a large-scale enterprise, it will be problematic to continue to implement the strategy of focusing on gambling.
In contrast to this epidemic, some companies are in deep trouble, which is also a manifestation of the lack of comprehensive risk control capabilities. What does the risk control capability include? Divided into two aspects, the first is the basic skills of business management. The best way to deal with uncertainty is to use certainty. If the basic skills are not in place, the ability to prevent risks will be weak. The second is leadership. In a crisis situation, if the top leader’s ability is strong, it is also an important means to deal with the crisis and resist risks. Combining the two can improve the risk prevention and control capabilities of most Chinese companies.
For example, McDonald’s is a company with very solid basic skills. All its management has standardized processes and standardized mechanisms. Under what circumstances, what actions should be taken and which steps should be implemented. A complete set of management systems has already been formulated. When a risk occurs, it can start an emergency plan in an orderly manner to ensure food safety and assured supply. Therefore, at McDonald’s, there is no need for employees to have very strong personal capabilities, and it is rare that McDonald’s has any impact on the operation because of which store manager has changed.
However, many companies in China are not willing to work hard on basic skills, but prefer to find a smart and capable person. Once a strong manager leaves, it will lead to a decline in business performance. Therefore, to do a good job of basic skills and “stabilize”, we must pay more attention to the management system and emergency response mechanism, rather than relying solely on human operations. Building a century-old store is the goal of a family business. In fact, if you want to achieve a century-old business, you need to establish a system and mechanism to ensure that even if the successor is an ordinary person, the business can still operate normally.
Four crisis response strategies
take advantage of the time of the outbreak of stakeholders, the biggest change brought to the enterprise ecosystem, is the owner of the company facing a sudden shortage of time it becomes a plenty of time. Therefore, the most important thing is to make full use of the time of corporate stakeholders, including expert consultants, customers, potential customers, employees, shareholders, and leaders. If they can successfully get their attention, it will be difficult for others to occupy their time, at least not to be occupied by competitors. This is the best strategy to deal with a crisis.
First, it is difficult for companies to invite top experts and consultants. Now, using this time window, they can invite experts to conduct online seminars on important company strategies.
Secondly, there is free time for customers. This stage is the best time for companies to strengthen customer relationships and conduct one-to-one communication. For all customers, at least 20% of the most important customers have one-to-one communication, understand customer needs and dissatisfaction, and make effective planning and compensation.
The third is employees. Companies should use this time to improve and train employees. If the quality and skills of employees reach a new level, after the epidemic, they will become a strong competitiveness for the company.
The online branded catering companies of catering companies, including McDonald’s, will not have high operating performance during the epidemic, and even takeaway delivery is limited. For them, now is not the time to cook and deliver food, but to build a brand. The path is through the online model. Catering companies under the epidemic should fully switch to online to support their operations. The cost is not high but the impact may be greater. Nowadays, a large number of traditional companies do not have enough knowledge of online operations, and they are slightly inadequate in the market operation of young people born in the 80s, 90s and 00s who are active online. Therefore, they should seize the opportunity to force companies to practice online. Kungfu, to achieve the “double swords” online and offline.
In addition to building a brand through data analysis and community models, online models are also the best way to reach target groups.
First, big data analysis. Through the analysis of user behavior data, the company establishes a systematic and complete user portrait online, formulates marketing strategies based on the user portrait, and clarifies when and what and how to make the best contact with users, and gain customer trust online, Realizing customers’ online orders will also lay a solid foundation for the company’s future online expansion.
Second, online communities. There is a sporting goods company that is worthy of reference. Since its customer base basically likes sports, the company formed an online community for its customers and issued a recruitment announcement: Who is good at swimming and is willing to teach for free? Some “activists” signed up, so the people in this community living around his home became his free students. For this coach, he did public welfare practice; for group members, they benefited from free learning; for this company, apart from arranging an employee to be responsible for the maintenance of the community organization, it did not pay any cost , Which made this sporting goods community very valuable and gained the trust of customers.
This kind of community model is to excavate the volunteers and capable people in the corporate community, and then take them? Non-corporate employees? Use your time well. To tap the “active elements” among customers is to integrate social resources, and then empower them to form an online mutual assistance alliance to enhance the business capabilities of the company.
Social resource integration “Exponential Organizations” mentioned in the book: If companies want to achieve rapid growth, they must have a strong ability to integrate social resources. Obviously, Hema Xiansheng has made a successful attempt in this regard. Recently, Hema Xiansheng accepted unemployed employees from catering companies such as Yunhai Delicacy and Youth Restaurant to enter the store and signed temporary labor contracts, alleviating the problem of labor shortage. Hema Xiansheng has ensured a rapid increase in the number of employees in the face of a sudden increase in market demand, and when the epidemic has passed and the market demand has decreased, it can ensure a rapid decrease in employees. But the employees here are not regular employees, but part-time employees. This is the ability to integrate social resources.
Not only facing the epidemic, various reasons will cause the company’s market demand to suddenly increase or decrease. At this time, the company’s employee system and social resources can be quickly integrated and matched, in a sense, it is a business model. Therefore, companies should find a balance and optimal combination between fixity and flexibility. For example, if the company can effectively integrate the resources of interns, on the one hand, the cost of wages is lower, and on the other hand, interns with good performance can become regular employees. This combination of fixed employees and interns will give companies greater competitiveness.
