Discussion of McKinsey's Implications for Business

Happy Thursday! The weekend is almost here, and we can wave another week goodbye. As we make it through this month, we continue to get used to the new “normal” that COVID-19 has compelled onto our lives. Here at Adam Kae & Associates, we strive to help our clients succeed with changing conditions. We took a look at McKinsey’s executive briefing they released last week: COVID-19: Implications for Business. McKinsey is one of the top global management consulting companies, and they’ve assembled this briefing regarding COVID-19 and its impact on our world. Today, we’ll discuss some of the highlights of this report and how it can impact your business!

Let’s Get Started

While there’s still a lot we don’t know, scientists are working around the clock to find global solutions to fight COVID-19. Countries are adopting different practices for testing, social distancing, and restriction. For example, Sweden has adopted a herd immunity strategy that limits social distancing methods while making more extreme efforts to protect the most vulnerable. The #1 goal of all these efforts is to save lives and ensure healthcare systems don’t reach full capacity.

Here’s a chart by McKinsey that outlines the virus as a whole and the different measures countries have implemented to slow the progression.

The Role of Organizations

First and foremost, organizations can follow official orders, practice safe social distancing, and stay on top news and developing updates. Here in the United States, it’s not too early to begin creating a new plan for returning to work. This could mean different things depending on your company, your industry, and even your geographical area. McKinsey used China's reopening as an example of how the United States might also reopen. These include different recovery stages focused and different opening stages for different industries.

McKinsey’s Imperatives

Mckinsey created two major imperatives to keep in mind while making plans for returning to normal life. One focuses on people, and the other around livelihoods. All in all, these areas balance between the extremity of solutions versus their overall effectiveness. For example, a highly regulated full shelter-in-place would be highly effective for slowing the spread, but it would be difficult to implement and bad for morale.

People

Communities should focus on helping stop the spread through social distancing and following other stay at home orders. We can also continue working toward treatment and testing capabilities as well as vaccines.

Livelihood

As a small business, it may be currently difficult to operate as normal. Are there any changes you can make to adjust how you operate? Adam Kae & Associates can help you create a feasible plan of action to continue limited operations. Even if that isn’t an option, you can begin creating plans for returning to work safely as well as recovery plans.

Solutions

Ultimately, the types of solutions you implement depend on how quickly or slowly we reach and pass the peak. As we continue flattening the curve, however, there are some ways you can begin brainstorming. According to McKinsey, there are three questions that leaders can focus on answering. These look at these three scenarios based on both the economic impact as well as the epidemiological impact. While these seem like an overwhelming amount of questions, you could group together certain scenarios and build tentative strategies. Adam Kae & Associates can help you create and implement such strategies when the time comes.

Depth of Disruption - How will we implement social distancing? To what extreme will we isolate/quarantine? How will proper testing measures be spread nationwide? How has this affected consumer behavior like going to restaurants or gyms?
Length of Disruption - Is this seasonal? How many cases can be treated at home versus require hospital care? How long will the overall disruption last? How long until availabilities of treatments and/or vaccines? How long until the peak? Note: so far, it is understood the peak will happen at different places at different times
Shape of Recovery - How quickly will public and private companies return to normal operations? Will there be stages of lifting restrictions? If so, what does that look like? How will we restart the economy? How will we continue to study the virus to watch for reinfection and virus mutations? How will we implement public health measures to still decrease the spread?

In the business community, we can continue to support each other during this challenging time. Adam Kae & Associates is here to help, too! We can help you find cost-saving solutions to help you get through this difficult time. We wish you health and safety, see you next week!

Resources

Adam Kae & Associates

Coronavirus' business impact: Evolving perspective

COVID-19: Briefing materials