Being Agile in order to survive or do better is not a recent phenomenon or buzzword. It evolved out of Change Management during the financial crisis and recession of the late 1980’s/early 1990’s when the stock market took a huge dive, and gained momentum in the 1990’s and 2000’s. Although it’s been around for a while now, I gather some businesses, such as Spark, are treating it as something completely new and are only now, 20+ years later, starting to embrace it.
So what exactly is ‘being Agile’? Unlike Change Management which involves a huge, time consuming process, including turning the business upside down to review and evaluate its every function and process, Agile is about making quick decisions pretty much on the fly to either take advantage of a new or rapidly developing situation, or else react quickly to it to minimise risk.
Covid-19 has been a catalyst for extremely rapid change that has resulted in a serious financial crisis and, unfortunately for NZ business, the worst is yet to come. Almost all of us must start thinking of new ways to generate extra income. Many businesses during the lockdown period have shown great Agility by rapidly enhancing their digital presence, with the result that they are now generating extra turnover to supplement the Wage Subsidy and other Government initiatives. But elevating our digital presence is only the starting position if we want to truly gain momentum to move with confidence into the future. To really get out of the blocks you are going to require more.
Being Agile during the current crisis is about building business and financial resilience to firstly survive and then move forward. Not all businesses are in the same predicament, so where do you sit on the Covid-19 timelines?
If you fit into either of the first two categories in one or both of the above timelines then you, as the business owner, are more than likely going to need some help to build an Agile Business Continuity Plan to boost your company’s current performance and create the resilience necessary to ride out what lies ahead.
That is where we can help you. Into the Blue NZ Limited in association with Business Support Studio Limited have put together both a Covid-19 Business Advisory Support Service, which is 100% government funded up to a maximum of $2,000 in the Auckland North Regions (subject to availability) and a 50% government co-funded service up to a maximum of $5,000 for the first 3 months. To make life even easier you can take advantage of both Services i.e. for the Auckland North Regions up to $7,000 in government funding. https://intotheblue.co.nz/regional-business-partnership/
Please note that the Covid-19 Business Advisory Support Service is subject to government fund allocation and is issued on a first-registered-first-issued basis. The previous Fund allocations of $15m were fully allocated to businesses in just 6 weeks, so we’d advise you to get in quick.
