By Prof. Dr. Rolf-Dieter Reineke
Subject
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- How can companies act after the corona crisis?
- How important are consultants to support enterprises in the post-pandemic area?
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Every crisis leaves a legacy
Companies are desperate to cope with mounting challenges after the Corona Crisis:
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- Rapid acceleration of digitalization: Companies had to learn about digitalization the “hard way” during the pandemic. Now the challenge is to transform themselves in digitally sound entities as part of the “new normal”.
- Re-organization of supply chains: As traditional value chains fell apart; insourcing is now sometimes more important than outsourcing.
- Customer demand: The sharp drop in sales leads to severe financial trouble. After the crisis the demand is expected to stabilize at a lower level for many businesses in the years to come.
- Finance management is confronted with a jump-start of cost-reductions, there is a need to conduct stress testing for financials after the pandemic.
- Growing importance of corporate resilience and agile leadership: Good to have these days; however, it cannot be developed over night.
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Roles of consultants to help to cope with the crisis and to find the right way forward
So, what can consultants do to help companies to find the right response?
In the short term, they provide data as an analytical basis, but also tools and methods to deal with the situation. In addition, they contribute the lessons of experience from previous disasters as guidelines for action.
Companies and industries changed after the crisis. Consultants contribute analytical skills to help enterprises to prepare for the emerging “new normal”. Their role may be the industry expert, the analyst, the coach and / or the trainer. In order to avoid that the next crisis, which will inevitably come, hits even harder, the consultant can support the company to develop corporate resilience and agility in the enterprise, a key for survival in the long term.
