Daily Times

Empty shelves in supermarkets, fights over basic commodities such as toilet rolls, absence of rudimentary hygiene products like antibacterial soaps and hand sanitisers, hoarding of non-perishable food items, unavailability of dairy produce and mile long queues to enter shops. These are not clips from a post-apocalyptic Hollywood flick! But some harrowing scenes witnessed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic! Things were difficult, demand was high, supply was low and panic buying had set-in droves.

After some time, and as claimed by multiple governments and corporations around the world, things settled down and some of the initial panic gave way to only mild concern. This was mainly because of two factors. First, one can only hoard so much! And thus, those who bought in bulk would not need to buy again in weeks or months. Second, and more importantly, companies – sensing the spike in demand of certain items – changed gears completely and quickly, to produce these things even if they weren’t manufacturing them in the first place. In that they practiced, and vindicated, the highly sought after and decidedly recommended policy of agility!

Previous Op-Eds in this series have defined and suggested a policy of agility for these dynamic times and to achieve the following four objectives. First, maintain a reasonable growth rate while paying respect to erstwhile competitors. Two, turn the organisation into a regional economic giant first and then into an international commercial powerhouse. Three, establish strategy and plans that are geared towards adaptability. Four, create value rather than wealth. If this policy was to be summed up in one sentence, it would be this – profitable survival and consistent economic growth through flexibility, dynamism and realism in an ever internationalised and volatile market.

For any policy to be effective, the underlying core strategies – the execution arm of the policy – must be aligned correctly

It is encouraging to see that many businesses recently have taken this policy to heart to combat and fulfil customer demand during the Coronavirus emergency. French luxury goods maker LVMH has used its facilities normally reserved for high-end perfumes for sweet-smelling Gallic sanitiser. In China, car maker SGMW – a joint venture between US giant General Motors and two Chinese partners – began producing face masks in February using medical-grade textiles from a supplier previously providing interior textile for cars. Japanese electronics giant Sharp adapted existing clean-room production facilities for LCD display panels to make 150,000 surgical masks a day. Britain’s Royal Mint, known for coins and precious metal investment products, also started making plastic visors for health workers in late March. In the US, although the government invoked the Defense Production Act to compel some companies to make ventilators but the majority of organisations switched production willingly to maintain revenues and output especially at a time when regular orders dried up. At the start of the lockdown, and with their primary sales route of pubs and clubs closed down, London-based boutique liquor brand ’58 Gin’ made the quick and novel decision to stop distilling small-batch gin and instead started producing large-batch hand sanitiser – dubbed ‘Hand Gin-itizer’. There are many other instances of similar agile repurposing of product output.

All the examples mentioned have almost completely achieved the four objectives of the policy of agility mentioned earlier, albeit with varying degrees. They have successfully contended the already internationalised and volatile market exacerbated further by COVID-19. For any policy to be effective, the underlying core strategies – the execution arm of the policy – must be aligned correctly. For those companies that have managed to pull off this feat of repurposing, there have been two broad strategies. Firstly, the use of the Agility framework to either fail fast or deliver value earlier. This is in opposition to the age-old mantra of ‘think a lot, act less’! The ongoing pandemic has forced this paradigm on firms because activities that normally took months were now needed to be executed in weeks or even days. Secondly, allowing the conjoining of the product development and operational support functions – in the correctly touted DevOps model – to help customers with corrections and efficiencies quickly.

For all the seeming ease at which the policy of agility has been executed recently, there are – and have also been – massive challenges. At-least four are noteworthy. One, the level of difficulty of transitioning into making new products varies from the simple (like hand sanitisers and face masks) to the complex (like ventilators and advanced testing kits). Two, not all segments within a company’s domain are relevant to a particular product type therefore leading to inefficiencies. Three, re-aligning existing supply chains to source new materials for repurposing production is not easy to say the least. Four, gaining regulatory approval – even at a heightened crisis such as this – is not easy. This is especially true because of past scandals such as poor governance and sketchy approval of substandard medicinal products. However, on balance and based on anecdotal evidence, it can be concluded that the benefits of the policy of agility outweigh the drawbacks and risks entailed in managing the four key issues described.

If there ever could be a silver lining to the recent upheaval, it would be this: the policy of agility has shown strong signs of successfully clearing the litmus test presented by COVID-19. Now, the question in front of businesses is whether they should continue with this policy or not? In a global, interconnected and fleeting world – the answer must be a definitive yes! Or else the next international catastrophe would force their hand anyway!

The writer is Director Programmes for an international ICT organization based in the UK