“The K-shaped recovery has negatively impacted the world, but how can businesses benefit from this?”
Introduction to a K-shaped recovery
COVID-19 has affected the world in ways people could never have imagined. Overstrained healthcare systems, education inequality, and poverty are all issues that have existed in our society long before the pandemic hit. However, COVID-19 has made these issues more apparent and undoubtedly exacerbated them. With this pandemic, comes a new K-shaped graph which illustrates how different sectors of the economy recover from a recession unevenly, showing clear separate trajectories for two groups of society. At first glance, it may seem like this is all bad news. But if you look closely, a great opportunity lies in the midst of it all.
Identifying opportunities for businesses
Illustrated by the downward-facing line of the graph, this represents vulnerable groups of society who have been hardest hit by the pandemic. However, the silver lining behind this cloud is the golden opportunity for businesses not only to recover, but to seize new opportunities for growth. While some businesses fail, food delivery services, for example, grew by 24% in 2021 as a result of the industry’s fast adaptation to consumer’s changed behavior. Online shopping, health and nutrition, and online streaming represent examples of other businesses that observed huge growth during this time.
Building a resilient business
Although speed of adaptation is important, that alone is not enough to guarantee business resilience in the future. At BRANDi, we created a business resilience framework known as the ‘Above the Ocean Strategy’ (AOS). Through the incorporation of People, Planet and Profit (3Ps), AOS enables businesses to be agile enough for unexpected (but anticipative) circumstances and leverage on changes as a cost for business growth instead of a problem. Once the business defines their purpose, this is immune to change and ultimately they will become a true sustainable business.
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