Managers need change management strategy

Some entrepreneurs and analysts reveal some management interventions that can be used to ensure business continuity amidst the pandemic.

Mr Stephen Kaboyo, the managing director Alpha Capital Partners, says unlike the 2008 financial crisis, Covid-19 has had widespread impact, bringing to the fore unique challenges to consumers, businesses and governments.

“There are a lot of unknown variables. At the moment, one of the key challenges is the lack of accurate, actionable information regarding the extent of the impact and duration,” Mr Kaboyo says adding this makes it difficult to establish given that the pandemic is still unfolding.

He notes that businesses are struggling to closely monitor their bottom lines as economic activity remains subdued.

“In the current times, businesses will have no choice but to reset their revenue outlooks, change their financial assumptions, tweak their business models, and review their operations,” Mr Kaboyo says.

A survey by the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development shows that 17 per cent of employers were forced to layoff workers.

Mr Godwin Juma, business development manager at Riyo Trading and Contracting Co Ltd, notes that with reports of record drop in sales revenue mainly due to the lock down imposed by governments to limit the spread of the disease and the fact that some businesses may take years to regain normalcy; the main issue in the minds of entrepreneurs, business executives and governments is how to restore pre-Covid-19 performance levels.

“For businesses to regain such levels, senior management needs to adopt a change management strategy. The right choice of operations strategy requires an understanding of the specific problem facing the business, if the top decision makers do not understand what is going on, the choice of action will be wrong,” Mr Juma says.

Customer focus

Mr Juma notes that there is a need for customer focus because no matter the nature of your business, the consumer of your goods or services expects to be treated as an individual.

“In providing solutions to their needs amidst a fall in disposable income, the operations strategy must define quality in terms of the customer,” he says.

This means the supply chain should be streamlined both within and outside the company to ensure that the right resources are spent on the most critical areas.

He adds that consolidation of market share remains a key point of focus in such times.

“Top management needs to identify and concentrate on markets where their products perform better. This can be better adopted by formulating a differential plan across the value chain,” Mr Juma says, adding that the efficient translation of demand to products and services with distinction and integrity has to be tackled in terms of innovation and creativity.

Speed

He says that the speed imperative is translated into criteria such as time to market for products and services, response time to orders from internal and external customers, manufacturing lead time for production due to changing customer expectations, competition and technological changes.

In order to remain afloat, he explains that top management should consider re-organising their processes with emphasis on speed, acceleration of capital rotation and shortening the development cycle of targeted products.

Quality and productivity

Businesses now require a transformation strategy in translating customer desires into product specifications.

He explains: “Whether it is an established multinational or a road side vendor, being creative combined with product quality is very important.”

Mr Juma adds that emphasis should be put on the quality of manufacturing processes, value addition and developing cross-functional problem solving mechanisms in marketing, human resources, logistics, production and inventory management.

“For a business to thrive in this Covid era, the key decision makers need to improve quality and productivity by increasingly concentrating on processes and not only on products to achieve high leverage over the competition,” he elucidates.

Mr Charles Ocici, executive director of Enterprise Uganda, says that businesses need to look at strategies that address cost drivers such as expenses.

“This entails minimising costs, doing work virtually and considering the amount of space required to operate and the rent,” Mr Ocici says.

In terms of utilities; there is a need to address cost centres, monitoring and utilising resources. 

“Reconsider presentation and packaging to align with the customer needs and demands so,” Mr Ocici says.

He encourages people to associate their sources of capital with limited costs. For instance, to avoid loans but go for surplus credit. 

Mr Ocici urges people to avoid capital development projects.

“Do not continue with expansion if you want to open a second branch; consolidate one of the capital projects,” he says adding that these should be accompanied by trust and character.

Building character, credibility and good will shows that you value your customers and suppliers.

 Mr Gideon Badagawa, the execitive director, Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU), says businesses are largely Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) looking for improved access to affordable credit and market access.

“These can be achieved once SMEs are organised in groups or have partnerships. They need joint ventures because they are too small to work single-handed,” Mr Badagawa notes.