Founder: Turnaround Talk
A typical argument in my house starts the exact moment that my wife picks up the remote control to find something to watch on television. Despite the fact that we have endless choices for content being privileged enough to have DSTV and a variety streaming services such as Netflix, Showmax and now Disney+ (which all boast extensive libraries of content), the exercise always ends the same way…a sigh and a dramatic promulgation that there is nothing to watch.
We never had this problem in the 1980s and early 1990s. Series such as Dallas, Knight Rider, Airwolf, and the original MacGyver (how I miss the original MacGyver) entertained us for ages.
My ultimate favorite was the A Team. The romance of a wrongly accused crack commando team who act as modern-day Robin Hood’s just appealed to my six-year-old brain. The format of the show was simple; the A Team were all veterans from the Vietnam War and used their military expertise to solve modern day problems.
Modern day turnaround professionals play a similar role for their clients (mostly without guns and fistfights). They apply their expertise as a crack commando team to help financially distressed companies return to profitability.
And they face their toughest mission yet. As the world plans a recovery from the Covid Pandemic, South African companies face massive structural challenges. Will it be possible form companies to deploy their crack commando unit effectively? PwC thinks so.
Create a dedicated crisis team
The PwC report points out that a crisis like Covid-19 can have an impact on every part of the business.
Senior level oversight—and internal cohesion among cross-functional teams, grounded in preparation, training and testing—are key to good outcomes. Every member of the team—from executive leadership down—should know who is doing what.
If you haven’t already, train the people involved in executing the plan to be sure they’re ready at a moment’s notice.
Establish the facts
The PwC report adds that reliable data underpins both crisis planning and response. It’s essential that the crisis plan outlines how information will flow and that everyone has confidence in its veracity. Strong data also reinforces a central element of crisis planning—exploring different scenarios and how they could affect the business in the short, medium and long term. Turnaround professionals are experts at this.
The PwC survey found that three-quarters of those in a better place post-crisis strongly recognize the importance of establishing facts accurately during the crisis. They are more likely to say that in the midst of the crisis, they did gather facts accurately and quickly—and they used those facts effectively to inform their response strategy.
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Collaborate—internally and externally
The PwC report points out that three key participants are at the heart of any crisis response:
- public relations and communications teams. They’re responsible for developing and delivering the organisation’s messaging internally and externally;
- legal and regulatory teams. Their role is to understand the organisation’s risk exposures and advise on appropriate responses; and
- operational response teams. They essentially handle everything else – including establishing the facts that the other two groups need to do their jobs.
Achieving the close orchestration needed between the communications, legal and operational teams is not always easy, partly because they’re often used to working in separate silos. Create a small core committee drawn from across them, empowered to make tactical decisions and escalate important issues to board level. This approach creates the orchestration that’s the “secret sauce” for an effective crisis response.
Craft a stakeholder communications strategy
The PwC report adds that a company’s messaging during a crisis should be authentic. It’s important to address all the organization’s stakeholders through turnaround professionals. In past crises, we’ve seen some corporations focus narrowly on particular stakeholder groups—perhaps investors, regulators or highly vocal consumers—while neglecting others like business customers or suppliers.
Part of your communications strategy will undoubtedly be centered on ensuring the safety and security of your workforce. Employees, or the potentially impacted communities they work in, will be looking to your organization for a response, guidance and regular communications. Review your travel rules, HR policies, first-aid plans now, and create ways to exercise the arrangements.
the report points put that many companies are focusing on global mobility, enabling employees to work remotely and reinforcing their IT infrastructure to support these arrangements.
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There are specific travel, immigration and custom issues related to ensuring the health of employees and business continuity with customers.
Critically, your communications strategy should also incorporate a clear understanding of all the audiences it needs to reach. Here are two considerations:
- Financial disclosures. How companies plan for the uncertainty and choose to respond to events is often watched by the financial markets; and
- Companies with direct exposure to the Covid-19 outbreak are updating customers about delays and adjusting customer allocations to optimize profits on near-term revenue or to meet contractual terms.
An often hidden upside of comprehensive stakeholder engagement and transparency is that it can actually lead to external stakeholders rallying to advocate for you during a crisis.
Where to focus next: Create space to scan the longer-term horizon
This section could be labelled the role of turnaround professionals. This is where their expertise come to the fore.
The report adds that companies should consider what happens not just today, but tomorrow and beyond. This may involve allocating dedicated resources who are freed up from the day-to-day pressures of managing the crisis. The resulting wider and longer-term perspective can help make the company’s emergence from the crisis even stronger and more sustainable.
In our experience, the response window for a crisis is typically measured in months, while recovery is measured in years. Now’s the time to run scenarios to create a crisis agnostic plan that’s fit for your business.
