After the coronavirus outbreak, professionals all over the world have started to share their views and suggestions on how companies can face the subsequent economic effects and challenges.
The first enlightening article was the Sequoia Capital’s memo: Coronavirus: The Black Swan of 2020. Another article is Funding in the Time of Coronavirus by Mark Suster, Managing Partner at Upfront Ventures.
Start-ups, by definition more flexible and revolutionary than big and long-established companies, have already acted by making fast and pivotal adjustments to the current changed circumstances.
Interesting is the survey undertaken by Talent Garden, an Italian based company that is now a leading European coworking network and educational institute for the digital and tech community. Talent Garden created and distributed a survey for the start-ups within its European ecosystem, which today consists of 23 campuses in 8 countries (here the outcomes of the survey).
Start-ups are playing defense, mainly by focusing on cash runway; start-ups are also playing offense, mainly by focusing on product development, in order to create a truly differentiated product that can give a huge advantage when the economy starts to recover; companies are also adjusting their business models, in order to engage clients – especially in these times of crisis – and find better ways to create and deliver value to their key stakeholders. Companies that are able to serve their mission, and not just delivering a product, are those that probably can really make the difference, during and after a crisis.
Even if some countries (such as Italy) are starting to see some feeble signs of improvement on the containment of the virus, it is clear that it will take considerable time for the economy to recover and go back to a “new normal” scenario.
Therefore, I would like to share some articles and insights on crisis management that I believe are useful, and I hope start-ups and professionals can find useful too, in order to set and eventually adjust their response to the Covid-19 crisis.
- Giuseppe Donvito’s Detailed List of Startup Measures against Corona. Giuseppe is Partner at P101 Ventures, a leading Italian VC firm. You can find my interview with Giuseppe HERE.
- An INSEAD article that tries to sum up lessons all facing any crisis should be aware of: Crisis Management: Framework and Principles with Applications to CoVid-19
- Harvard Business School Professors and Experts’ views on how the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to change business practice: How the Coronavirus Is Already Rewriting the Future of Business
- The Covid-19 Rapid Crisis Response Checklist of BCG Turn, the turnaround practice of BCG, to ensure health and safety, business strength, financial resilience, and execution clarity during a crisis: CHECKLIST. More articles published by BCG Turn are available HERE.
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