“What can't be cured, must be endured”, until better times are upon us, old German proverb that catches the times some companies now act in.
It’s quite interesting to see that some companies are having a field day while others are trying to stay alive.
When I reach out to different clients I get all kind of interactions, some are closed down, others are run by a skeleton crew, some are conducting business as before, while others are in a rush, and can barely keep up with demands.
There are probably a lot of different strategies that are tried out in real time while others decided to try to endure until better times are back again.
It is impressive to see how creative some companies are in finding new ways of doing business, while others don’t feel like they have a choice at all.
Well, if you feel like you just hit a brick wall, I am sure you are not alone feeling the pain, while others just got a fire hose of new clients thrown at them.
Overnight we suddenly found our self, working from home, conducting business online, or virtually as they call it today.
Virtual meetings are new to many companies even though it’s been around for many years, we use to call it video conferencing, now it’s all about web meetings.
The brands are the same in most cases, sometimes rebranded and in other cases there are totally new providers worth more than some of the old global companies.
The value has gone from millions to billions overnight, and clients has gone from a few hundred thousand to millions globally.
In the race of being first, competition has forced companies to try and slow the competition down by pointing out security issues while trying to get your own product out there before clients are signed up.
At the same time you see counter information being circled around to fight back competition while we, as clients, have to figure out what to do, and who to choose as a web meeting provider.
Pointing fingers works both ways, and any type of business war is costly for everyone, so being competitive forces a competitor to react and counteract and that can hurt your brand in many ways long term.
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My advice in these difficult times, are to think trough how you act and what praxis you are setting for your own future, when you interact within your own business community.
Make sure your own business has a long-term plan, once happy days are back again, we will all remember who to trust, who lent us a helping hand, who stabbed us in the back and who got greedy.
There will be a lot of renegotiations done, reconsiderations and new business possibilities for all of us, I am sure we no longer can say “business as usual” any more, its probably more about adapting to “unusual” times for a while.
So, my last advice to you is what Winston Churchill once said; “If you are going trough hell, keep going”
If you are not going through hell, then you have a bit more time to reconsider how to proceed once a lot of clients are gone, and new ones have emerged.
Stay safe
Christopher Bell Blomquist
Managing director Scotwork Sweden
BellBlomquist Consulting.
www.scotwork.se