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Opportunities in Crisis
- By Osuolale Akande
- Published October 26th, 2009
- Business School
- Unrated
"When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters- one represents danger and the other represents opportunity" John. F. Kennedy (35th American President) 1917-1963
Background
SURELY opportunity for survival is shrinking. Invariably the ability of organizations to succeed is now becoming less frequent but despite the crisis in the global economy, there are pockets of opportunities around the world but it is only the discerning and prepared mind that is ready to take risk that will be able to identify and seize opportunities as they come their way. Crisis always bring out the best in the prepared mind. But how do you stay focused and launch an enterprise or drive the established one towards generating more value in times like this? Where exactly will the opportunities come from, at what point during the crisis should an entrepreneur launch out to maximise on the opportunity that may come his way and how do one even recognize these opportunity when they arise.
Identifying with the Crisis
There is no better way to start in the quest to fish out opportunities out of these troubled waters than for established and aspiring leaders to identify the origin of the crisis and trace if there are similar events that have taken place in the past years and draw inferences from them. Doing this will allow organisational leaders to identify potent threats that have being lying low or have being deflected in the past that may have led to the present crisis. Identifying the probable course of a problem is the precursor of gaining from any crisis, it is not only the present crisis that should be analyzed, the previous crisis that is similar should also be properly examined.
Sometime solutions and opportunities are always hidden inside the crisis, for example there are some banks that are reaping bountifully from the fallout of the reforms in the banking sector, they are doing so because they have recognise the opportunity presented to them and they are grabbing it with both hands. In spite of the entire avenue from which opportunity may arise, including identifying it during critical period, there is still the need to be prepared in other to identify and utilize it
Getting prepared
Getting prepared entail having the soft skills that will drive the hard skills in management, as it has been posited by management guru in the past, management may only be about sales, account and profit margin but leadership is about ensuring the long term survival of an organisation and the creation of value for the stakeholders through the proper use of men, money and materials. Being prepared to undertake the task of turning crisis into avenue that will usher in opportunity entails the following;
• You must be ready to imbibe new innovations that will set you apart from your closest rivals' e.g. The use of internet booking and constant lowering of cost by Aero contractors in the Nigerian domestic aviation industry will ensure customer's "pull" , increase cash flow and ensure customer acquisition, so Aero is leveraging on the use of the innovation of booking over the internet in other not to become a dinosaur.
• The ability to be flexible and adapt to changing condition is also very important, most times in the corporate world. When crisis occur, it takes a lot of time for most organizations to be able to gather themselves together and engineer a survival strategy not to talk of opportunity grabbing ones. Therefore it is pertinent to always have contingency plan, that is plan B, C and even D, if all these plans are well formulated they will form the basis for the actualization of converting crisis to opportunity that will add value to the organization. For example, imagine most of the oil-importing firms envisaging that funds will dry up from banks two years ago, may be they could have floated a finance company that will be targeted at their segment of the economy.
• The best leadership skills are not taught in school, even the best Business schools do not have antidote for crisis, in order to use crisis as a stepping stone, leaders must be ready to unlearn and relearn. The time of crisis is the time to relate more with your staff, scan your environment for new thinking and source for new ideas, nothing in an organization is unchangeable, open yourself for new ideas. Today is in the past the moment we open our eyes in the morning, we are only living to fulfil our dreams for the future and that dream will only be fulfilled if we make ourselves ready for tomorrow today.
• There is nothing like having a good mentor that can walk you through a process that he has been through before, most time history do repeat itself and those who are part of history knows how to work through the path. Their experience will reduce the stress that you may have to undergo in other to fish out opportunity from crisis, no matter how big you may be in an organization there are some pathfinders that have gone beyond you in your industry or similar ones seek them out and use their success story as a benchmark and their failures as lesson.
Understanding crisis as the precursor for future success after realignment, re-engineering and repositioning is the bedrock of identifying opportunities that will be beneficial to an organization but even the stages of realignment, re-engineering and repositioning may present opportunities of their own so take care to be ready to take your own bounty before the storm stopped, nothing may be left when the shipwreck get to the harbour.
Background
SURELY opportunity for survival is shrinking. Invariably the ability of organizations to succeed is now becoming less frequent but despite the crisis in the global economy, there are pockets of opportunities around the world but it is only the discerning and prepared mind that is ready to take risk that will be able to identify and seize opportunities as they come their way. Crisis always bring out the best in the prepared mind. But how do you stay focused and launch an enterprise or drive the established one towards generating more value in times like this? Where exactly will the opportunities come from, at what point during the crisis should an entrepreneur launch out to maximise on the opportunity that may come his way and how do one even recognize these opportunity when they arise.
Identifying with the Crisis
There is no better way to start in the quest to fish out opportunities out of these troubled waters than for established and aspiring leaders to identify the origin of the crisis and trace if there are similar events that have taken place in the past years and draw inferences from them. Doing this will allow organisational leaders to identify potent threats that have being lying low or have being deflected in the past that may have led to the present crisis. Identifying the probable course of a problem is the precursor of gaining from any crisis, it is not only the present crisis that should be analyzed, the previous crisis that is similar should also be properly examined.
Sometime solutions and opportunities are always hidden inside the crisis, for example there are some banks that are reaping bountifully from the fallout of the reforms in the banking sector, they are doing so because they have recognise the opportunity presented to them and they are grabbing it with both hands. In spite of the entire avenue from which opportunity may arise, including identifying it during critical period, there is still the need to be prepared in other to identify and utilize it
Getting prepared
Getting prepared entail having the soft skills that will drive the hard skills in management, as it has been posited by management guru in the past, management may only be about sales, account and profit margin but leadership is about ensuring the long term survival of an organisation and the creation of value for the stakeholders through the proper use of men, money and materials. Being prepared to undertake the task of turning crisis into avenue that will usher in opportunity entails the following;
• You must be ready to imbibe new innovations that will set you apart from your closest rivals' e.g. The use of internet booking and constant lowering of cost by Aero contractors in the Nigerian domestic aviation industry will ensure customer's "pull" , increase cash flow and ensure customer acquisition, so Aero is leveraging on the use of the innovation of booking over the internet in other not to become a dinosaur.
• The ability to be flexible and adapt to changing condition is also very important, most times in the corporate world. When crisis occur, it takes a lot of time for most organizations to be able to gather themselves together and engineer a survival strategy not to talk of opportunity grabbing ones. Therefore it is pertinent to always have contingency plan, that is plan B, C and even D, if all these plans are well formulated they will form the basis for the actualization of converting crisis to opportunity that will add value to the organization. For example, imagine most of the oil-importing firms envisaging that funds will dry up from banks two years ago, may be they could have floated a finance company that will be targeted at their segment of the economy.
• The best leadership skills are not taught in school, even the best Business schools do not have antidote for crisis, in order to use crisis as a stepping stone, leaders must be ready to unlearn and relearn. The time of crisis is the time to relate more with your staff, scan your environment for new thinking and source for new ideas, nothing in an organization is unchangeable, open yourself for new ideas. Today is in the past the moment we open our eyes in the morning, we are only living to fulfil our dreams for the future and that dream will only be fulfilled if we make ourselves ready for tomorrow today.
• There is nothing like having a good mentor that can walk you through a process that he has been through before, most time history do repeat itself and those who are part of history knows how to work through the path. Their experience will reduce the stress that you may have to undergo in other to fish out opportunity from crisis, no matter how big you may be in an organization there are some pathfinders that have gone beyond you in your industry or similar ones seek them out and use their success story as a benchmark and their failures as lesson.
Understanding crisis as the precursor for future success after realignment, re-engineering and repositioning is the bedrock of identifying opportunities that will be beneficial to an organization but even the stages of realignment, re-engineering and repositioning may present opportunities of their own so take care to be ready to take your own bounty before the storm stopped, nothing may be left when the shipwreck get to the harbour.
