Plan Your Brand Strategy While Under Yellow

Perhaps the scariest part of this economic slowdown (leaving aside the public health threat for just a moment) is the abrupt decline in demand across all sectors. Suddenly, all the customers, clients, consumers and purchasers seemed to vanish. Businesses responded by downsizing drastically. The week of March 16, an almost unimaginable 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits. That number will grow alarmingly in the next couple of weeks. As I wrote last week, the economy is racing under a “yellow flag.” Senior executives are pulling out all the stops to save their businesses and hopefully come out of the emergency still in position to rehire those they’ve had to lay off. They’re concentrating on protecting their workforces, stabilizing their supply chains, staying in communication with their home-bound customers, strengthening their financials and generally organizing themselves for dealing effectively with the emergency. But, according to an argument from McKinsey & Company this month, that won’t be enough. Management must respond to the short term necessities, of course. But not if that means taking their eyes off long-term planning. Read more.