This is a simple guide to help you to evaluate and plan for the future, once everything gets back to relative normality. It will help you to avoid past bad habits and with any luck will help you run more effectively and efficiently.
If you have had to change and adapt your business during Covid-19, it is a great opportunity for you to re-evaluate how you work moving forwards. Being forced into working differently is no-ones first choice, but you now have the benefit of oversight. Take the time to look at your future plan and use this time to set actions and goals moving forwards.
How has Covid-19 effected your business?
List everything that has happened. i.e. furloughing staff, remote working, sales, building costs, meetings. List everything that you can think about in one column.
In the next column list how, you used to work. i.e. staff on site, face to face meetings, face to face sales etc.
In the next column, list the things you have done to overcome each item. i.e set employees up to work remotely, changed the way you take and handle orders, change in the way in which you deal with clients etc.
Effected? | Past | Present | Future |
Once you can clearly see how you used to work and how you are working now, you can easily set a plan to how you are going to work in the future.
There is no need to overcomplicate this exercise. It gives a visual representation of the past, present and future and will help you when planning your future goals and aspirations.
Think about being more flexible with homeworking. By now you will know that your employees are more than capable of working remotely. Moving forwards, could this save you expenses of overheads having all staff physically present at all times?
If you have had to move your normal face to face sales, online, is it maybe an opportunity to look at how you sell.
If all meetings are now on Zoom, Skype, or Teams, could this not continue? Saving money on travel expenses and time away from the workplace.
Would outsourcing staff work for you? Many businesses outsource marketing and sales nowadays to save on overheads, sickness and holidays.
For businesses effected, that rely on physical footfall, and have needed to temporarily close, there is still the opportunity to re-evaluate how you operate and plan ahead.
Writing down everything is a powerful tool to help you plan for the future. We all agree that this has changed all of us, so if we plan, we safeguard our business, should anything like this happen again.