Are You Preparing Your Business to Pivot?

by Anita Davis-Defoe for the Urban Sentinel

Coupled with facing the multi-faced challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic globally, businesses, particularly smallmedium enterprises (SMEs), if they aim to remain viable and once again thrive in what has become “the new normal” must be focused on what I have labeled a P2P; Plan to Pivot!

One of my mentors, Dr. John C. Maxwell says, “Each day we are preparing to move forward, or we are repairing a misstep.” Think about it, when we fail to scan the environment to inform actions and decisions, or when we do and neglect to prepare a strategy to proactively address the factors noted with a solution, we then stay in a constant repair mode. We become a perpetual fire fighter, always moving from crisis to crisis, working to keep the business from burning down.

Right now, every business is staring customer demand breakdowns, regulatory modifications, supply chain missing links, escalating unemployment, economic recession, and unsettling uncertainty. Thus, for your business to rebound and recover, during this time of quarantine, do your groundwork, edit your business playbook and create your P2P.

Canadian management expert Henry Mintzberg suggests that strategy is comprised of 5 Ps: plan, ploy, pattern, position, and perspective. Every SME should apply this mindset and get ready for the pivot. Determine your current position, plan your next moves, what lens or perspective will guide your actions, what programs –projects – products will your company create and delivery, and how will you continue to evaluate data to be prepared daily.

Ponder these questions as you prepare to pivot:

1. What is the current position of your business and what are your business aspirations as the pandemic lessens or hopefully ends?

2. What is your plan for achieving these desired results?

3. What is your “bounce-back mindset, for yourself, your team, your enterprise, hopeful or hopeless?

4. What is the state of your innovative mind, what new programs, projects, or products will you need to create and market to remain viable and to effectively rebound?

5. How are you preparing to achieve desired results, so that daily you are not just repairing?

Dr. Marcia Brandon, Chief Entrepreneurship Expert with the Caribbean Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Livelihoods (COESL), shared these thoughts as it relates to the pivot, “Entrepreneurs can use this time to look for new partners and develop existing products or even pivot. Our entrepreneurship landscape will change. We will have a leaner organizational structure, which means more crossfunctional roles. Entrepreneurs who are operating virtually need governance structures in place (policies) to guide how they do things. For example, how does one work from home? Telephone etiquette, use of cameras on a computer, all of those are things to consider to guide the standards in a business. If MSME entrepreneurs do not have these already it is now time to learn from this and take the time to create crisis protocols and preventive action items for the future.”

The current pandemic has clearly spotlighted health disparities and the need for us all to be more proactive about our self–care. Dr. Lenore Coleman, CEO of Healing Our Village, has been and continues to be an innovator in the health sector and is certainly prepared to pivot offering Healing Our Village Telepharmacy.

“Each day we are preparing to move forward, or we are repairing a misstep.”

Dr. Coleman commented, “For the past 6 years, Healing Our Village has been involved in the concept of Telepharmacy. The Model State Pharmacy Act defines the ‘practice of telepharmacy as the provision of pharmacist care by registered pharmacists located in within the US. Telepharmacy includes Medication Therapy Management, Remote patient monitoring, chronic disease management and transitional care. All of these services use telecommunications and bluetooth devices to help patients “Know Their Numbers”. Through the use of these innovative educational strategies, patients enrolled in the HOV program not only reach their GOALS for blood pressure and blood glucose, but also end up in the Emergency room 50% less.

Explaining further, Dr. Coleman shred, “The reality is that medication adherence is a huge problem. The data shows that 20 to 30 percent of new prescriptions are never filled at the pharmacy; medication is not taken as prescribed 50 percent of the time; and patients prescribed medications for chronic diseases, stop taking the medication after six months. This is why medication nonadherence in the United States costs the health care system $300 billion annually, particularly by companies invested in improving adherence. Prior to 2020, many of the insurance plans and physician offices were not READY for Telepharmacy. COVID 19 turned everything UPSIDE DOWN. HOV is now in a position to provide Telepharmacy services in the United States and Abroad. To find out more about Healing Our Village go to www.healingourvillage.com or call 800 788 0941

Embrace a P2P Mindset

1. Accept that this is the new normal, don’t wait around for the “change” to come to revert back to the “old normal”. How are you now going to operate?

2. Work from home or remote working is now normalized, assess your need for office space.

3. Move your business online today, if you have not already done so. Social Distancing is a new way to operate.

4. Brands will now have to be more caring and personal, for consumers to trust and interact. Health and Safety will be a key branding feature consumers will look for.

5. Seek strategic partners, you cannot make it on your own

Thoughts Shared by, Aldo Antonio is the Executive Chairman of Blackslate Holdings Group Limited (www.blackslateholdings.com), a Caribbean positioned holding company for a diverse group of businesses & investments, operating out of Mandeville Manchester Jamaica.

In order for entrepreneurs, businesses and start ups to thrive at this time it is imperative that we follow the wisdom provided for us from the past. During the Great Depression, Napoleon Hill, in the number 1 best seller “think and grow rich” has provided us with the keys to thrive in tragedy.

1. Build a mastermind team - find individuals with similar goals and interest and combine resources with maximum efforts to reach a desired goal

2. Refocus: use this time to reflect on your past and present goals and determine if your current strategy is actually working

3. Attitude. Dream big. Think outside the box and stay positive. Instead of looking for the solution, become the solution. Ask yourself how can help the world during this time? Once you answer this question... make a plan with your mastermind group and get to work..

4. Don’t chase money, attract money. Focus on the process to solving the problem, share it with your team and the resources will present themselves from within your mastermind group.

Thoughts Shared by, Lawrence Chambers, Founder of Hi*Tek Co.

Decide to take charge of your business narrative. We all get 86400 seconds each day, and the question becomes, will we use the time to get prepare or grind to repair!!