TESTIMONY FROM A BUSINESSMAN ABOUT THE CHALLENGES AND DOUBTS OF THE PANDEMIC
Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2025 9:36 am
I am a businessman who, like the vast majority in Brazil, urgently needed to adapt my company's operations due to the restrictions imposed by the new Corona Virus pandemic.
I had to deal with changing my team's entire operation and migrating everyone who could to home office, even though I wasn't prepared for it.
It may be that in other countries this transition was easier, as home office is a much more common practice, but, for me, it was something that I was taking into consideration in the medium or long term, with a lot of planning, research and preliminary testing.
The urgency created the need to implement it as quickly as possible. Even before the methodology, I had to decide on one or more systems that would enable the exchange of information and data and viber data create ease of communication between departments and employees, even if partial.
Then I had to adjust the way I managed production, deliveries and the activation of new Jobs.
All this to be able to serve my customers with the highest possible quality and agility.
Customers. How to keep them? That was definitely the biggest challenge.
In parallel, the difficult decisions and actions to keep operations minimally adjusted, such as dealing with companies that (like mine), from one garden to another, could no longer work, as well as their respective customers and so on. A huge avalanche!!!
I had to negotiate services and contracts, deal with non-payment, cancellations, etc., create an environment that, no matter how precarious it might seem, would not let my company “go bankrupt”.
Then the government and banks presented solutions that only made me have more doubts. Would it be viable, in addition to all the uncertainties, to venture into loans and run the risk of sinking my finances even further and owing them for years?
I confess that I was afraid. For myself and for my employees. Losing my dream and laying off all my employees? A terrible thought.
Balanced on this tightrope, I kept walking. I needed to find new opportunities in the market, win new clients and figure out how to generate revenue with those I still had in my portfolio, offering other services and/or products that they didn't yet have.
Now, for me and for those who managed to overcome the first “impact waves”, everything is moving at a calmer pace. The suffocation is over... (REALLY?).
From the conversations I hear around, a new scenario will emerge soon.
With one (or several) vaccines for the Corona Virus being produced, and with the real possibility of the end of the pandemic, quarantine and almost all necessary precautions for health safety, new questions must be asked, evaluated and answered.
I was forced to create a new work dynamic and everyone in my company had to adapt to it. Operations are ongoing. With this new scenario emerging, the first and main question I ask myself is... WHAT AM I GOING TO DO NEXT?
Dismantle this entire current operation and go back to what we were?
Keep everything as is and just improve structures and methodologies?
Create something mixed? A mix between what it was like before the pandemic and the way we are working now?
What is more advantageous? What are the benefits and disadvantages of adopting or abandoning one of these formats?
Returning to the way things were before means relocating all employees to their old physical spaces and getting rid of some investments in adapting to home office or teleworking. Not to mention the intellectual effort and time required to design solutions and processes.
How can I make the most of all this?
Honestly, I don't know yet.
Now, I very often hear, here and there, people talking about “Hybrid Operations”.
This could be a good option to maintain the advantages I gained with the new way of working, in addition to the great possibility of reducing operational and hiring costs.
Of course I thought the idea was cool.
I have experience in the format I used to work in and the one I use now during the pandemic, and I believe I understand the concept of this new proposal right away.
I had to deal with changing my team's entire operation and migrating everyone who could to home office, even though I wasn't prepared for it.
It may be that in other countries this transition was easier, as home office is a much more common practice, but, for me, it was something that I was taking into consideration in the medium or long term, with a lot of planning, research and preliminary testing.
The urgency created the need to implement it as quickly as possible. Even before the methodology, I had to decide on one or more systems that would enable the exchange of information and data and viber data create ease of communication between departments and employees, even if partial.
Then I had to adjust the way I managed production, deliveries and the activation of new Jobs.
All this to be able to serve my customers with the highest possible quality and agility.
Customers. How to keep them? That was definitely the biggest challenge.
In parallel, the difficult decisions and actions to keep operations minimally adjusted, such as dealing with companies that (like mine), from one garden to another, could no longer work, as well as their respective customers and so on. A huge avalanche!!!
I had to negotiate services and contracts, deal with non-payment, cancellations, etc., create an environment that, no matter how precarious it might seem, would not let my company “go bankrupt”.
Then the government and banks presented solutions that only made me have more doubts. Would it be viable, in addition to all the uncertainties, to venture into loans and run the risk of sinking my finances even further and owing them for years?
I confess that I was afraid. For myself and for my employees. Losing my dream and laying off all my employees? A terrible thought.
Balanced on this tightrope, I kept walking. I needed to find new opportunities in the market, win new clients and figure out how to generate revenue with those I still had in my portfolio, offering other services and/or products that they didn't yet have.
Now, for me and for those who managed to overcome the first “impact waves”, everything is moving at a calmer pace. The suffocation is over... (REALLY?).
From the conversations I hear around, a new scenario will emerge soon.
With one (or several) vaccines for the Corona Virus being produced, and with the real possibility of the end of the pandemic, quarantine and almost all necessary precautions for health safety, new questions must be asked, evaluated and answered.
I was forced to create a new work dynamic and everyone in my company had to adapt to it. Operations are ongoing. With this new scenario emerging, the first and main question I ask myself is... WHAT AM I GOING TO DO NEXT?
Dismantle this entire current operation and go back to what we were?
Keep everything as is and just improve structures and methodologies?
Create something mixed? A mix between what it was like before the pandemic and the way we are working now?
What is more advantageous? What are the benefits and disadvantages of adopting or abandoning one of these formats?
Returning to the way things were before means relocating all employees to their old physical spaces and getting rid of some investments in adapting to home office or teleworking. Not to mention the intellectual effort and time required to design solutions and processes.
How can I make the most of all this?
Honestly, I don't know yet.
Now, I very often hear, here and there, people talking about “Hybrid Operations”.
This could be a good option to maintain the advantages I gained with the new way of working, in addition to the great possibility of reducing operational and hiring costs.
Of course I thought the idea was cool.
I have experience in the format I used to work in and the one I use now during the pandemic, and I believe I understand the concept of this new proposal right away.