Lessons taken from China’s recovery following COVID-19 pandemic

Here are the 5 lessons FCM feels are broadly applicable to businesses and industries globally:

1. Be ahead of the curve, adapt your efforts.

Global pandemics have a largely dynamic trajectory which requires a constant redefining of business models and plans. Initial ignorance gives us the chance to make sense and discover opportunities, which allows for recovery planning, strategy, reflection and finally learning. This process, however, must be fast and agile enough to avoid getting stuck in complex internal coordination processes, affecting your ability to react to our fast-changing circumstances.

In China, some of the fastest-recovering companies proactively looked ahead and anticipated such shifts.

2.  A bottom-up approach to compliment your top-down strategies.

Rapid, coordinated responses require top-down leadership, but adapting to unpredictable change, with distinct dynamics in different communities, also requires decentralized initiative-taking. Some Chinese companies effectively balanced the two approaches, setting a top-down framework within which employees innovated.

Huizhou, a city that operates 6,000 hotels in 400 cities across China, set up a crisis task force that met daily to review their procedures and issued top-down guidance for the whole chain.

3. Create clarity and security for your employees.

In a crisis, it’s hard to find clarity. Especially when the situation and the available information are constantly changing and evolving. Confusion is compounded by a large amount of media reports with differing perspectives and advice. Your employees will need to adopt and adapt to new ways of working, but they won’t be able to do so unless they have clear, consistent information and overall direction from their leaders.

Some Chinese companies created very proactive guidance and support for their employees. China’s largest kitchenware manufacturer instituted very specific operational guidelines and procedures for its employees, such as instructions for limiting their exposure while dining in canteens and emergency plans for abnormal situations.

4. Use social media to coordinate your employees and other stakeholders.

With remote working and a new set of complex coordination challenges, many Chinese companies took to social media platforms, such as WeChat, to coordinate their employees and partners.

A large retail business initiated a program aimed at increasing its sales through WeChat, enlisting employees to promote to their social circles. They created a sales ranking amongst employees, helping motivate the rest of its staff to participate in the initiative.

South African businesses can take advantage of the various business apps available to mobilise your teams and collaborate remotely.

5. Rapidly innovate around the new and emerging customer needs.

Beyond rebalancing your product portfolio, the new customer needs also create opportunities for innovation for all businesses across the world. When threatened by crisis, many businesses will be focused on defensive moves, but some Chinese companies boldly innovated around emerging opportunities.

The insurance industry is notoriously conservative, but in response to the crisis, a company added free coronavirus-related coverage to its products. The action served a customer need while promoting awareness of the firm’s online offerings and improving customer loyalty.

Without a doubt, more new lessons will emerge from China, Korea, Italy, and eventually, the U.S. businesses that adopt a high-frequency approach to learning, organising and applying lessons from other regions, will be better able to protect their employees and business.