A crisis is not just a threatening situation for a company. In a crisis, there are better starting conditions for change in the company than in "normal times". Those who use these conditions in a crisis as an opportunity to improve their own competitiveness will emerge from the crisis stronger and ensure greater corporate success in the long term.
A crisis is an exceptional situation in which previous procedures no longer fit the changed framework conditions.
Global and therefore also national market conditions are currently becoming increasingly unstable again. Since 2009 at the latest, many companies have been on their guard against the next crisis and are looking forward to it rather anxiously. In a crisis, market conditions have changed to such an extent that companies can no longer achieve their economic goals with their previous market transactions, or only to a limited extent.
A crisis situation forces change.
Some companies survive such a crisis by waiting because they have sufficient liquidity or because drastic redimensioning measures can ensure their survival over a certain period of time. Other companies do not survive the crisis without making lasting changes. In order to adapt to the changed demand and sales conditions during a crisis, a fundamental change in structures and processes is often necessary.
Urgency and necessity are present, the success rate of change in crises is higher than in "normal" times.
The prerequisite for any sustainable change in the company is knowledge of the necessity and urgency of the change. Necessity identifies the reason for the change and urgency explains why the change cannot be postponed until tomorrow. In a crisis that plunges a company into survival-relevant problems, necessity and urgency are given. In "normal times", on the other hand, this important prerequisite is difficult to achieve and is often underestimated or simply overlooked. This means that the opportunity for far-reaching change is far greater in a crisis and a strategic change to the company is more promising.
The earlier sustainable changes are initiated in a crisis, the more successful they are.
A crisis can be divided into 4 phases: Strategy crisis, earnings crisis, liquidity crisis, insolvency. If the company is already in an earnings crisis, turnaround measures are needed to immediately secure liquidity, followed by drastic cost-cutting measures in the liquidity crisis. This significantly restricts the scope for action due to the increasing urgency in the later phases. Fundamental changes to the company for long-term corporate stability and growth can be taken and implemented all the more easily the earlier they are initiated in a crisis.
A crisis can be an opportunity to increase competitiveness and achieve long-term growth.
Companies that focus their energy on progressive crisis management and long-term corporate stability at an early stage instead of literally burying their heads in the sand are more likely to survive a crisis and even emerge from it stronger. On the other hand, it is important not to fall into panic-stricken actionism.
After all, in order to remain competitive and hold your own on the market when economic demand is limited, you need to think carefully about whether the changed market situation also presents an opportunity.
To be competitive in the long term, a company must be able to react to market turbulence. This requires flexible companies.
For many companies, the only way to be successful is to develop the ability to react flexibly and quickly enough to market movements. Rigid hierarchical structures are no longer able to cope with today's market turbulence. However, in order to develop a flexible organizational structure in which intrapreneurship concepts, self-organization and the associated innovative strength are effective, enormous cultural changes are necessary in most organizations. A crisis can generate the necessary change energy for such significant cultural changes.
Many companies have used difficult economic situations to make their own adjustments and have emerged stronger from the crisis.
With the help of selected methods and tools, a crisis can be overcome and the company's long-term success secured. wibas knows these methods and tools from its own experience and supports organizations in using them in a targeted manner. These include, among others
- Establishment of crisis early warning indicators for the company
- Increasing corporate dynamics and self-organization through agile approaches
- Establishment of continuous risk management
- The implementation of crisis management strategies, e.g. adaptation of sales structures and processes
- Employee qualification
- Optimization of contract design with service providers to enable short-term "breathing"
- Development and implementation of diversification strategies
As a result of implementing the points listed above, our customers were able to survive difficult economic situations without having to reduce staffing levels and have since been increasingly on course for growth.
Note: This text is an article that we published on our website in 2011. As this topic is still very popular, we republished this article on our blog when we restructured our website.
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