Agility, resilience needed for a post-Covid world

THE Covid-19 pandemic has left us with an unpredictable and fluid economy. We are entrenched in a global crisis that is spiralling into a recession, the likes of which not many have experienced in their lifetime. Since end-2019, the Covid-19 pandemic has infected well over four million people globally, taken hundreds of thousands of lives, and paralysed global supply chains.

In a matter of weeks, sectors such as aviation, tourism, retail, manufacturing and construction were - and still are - struggling with falling demand or disruption to their operations as a result of the various governmental measures to contain the spread of Covid-19.

Business leaders need to take a leap of faith by re-imagining the future, re-planning their strategies and adopting an entrepreneurial mindset for recovery. In the post-Covid environment, new risks and waves of innovation will emerge. Some of the immediate needs, for example, are effective and cost-efficient cleaning services and increased automation and efficient techniques in the construction sector. How can the workforce keep up with longer-term structural changes when the economy rebounds? How can companies deal with increasing global risks and increased capital investments? This depends on the effectiveness and agility of corporate strategy and government policies.