Five good management practices in times of crisis

Tiếng Việt

Five good management practices in times of crisis

COVID-19 is triggering major disruptions for companies in Vietnam and throughout the world. The unique circumstances mean that many business owners and managers are left having to “hope for the best and prepare for the worst”.

RMIT University (Vietnam) School of Business & Management Program Manager Dr Burkhard Schrage shares how businesses can mitigate risks from disruptions caused by COVID-19.

1. Conduct an audit

Make an audit of the business processes and identify those that are critical to keep the company running. This enables management to reallocate resources from support functions to those departments that are critical. As an example, staff from market research activities may be moved to the customer service department.

2. Protect your decision makers

Split management team and staff into two groups; these groups should not have physical contact with each other throughout the crisis. This is very important in ensuring business continuity. The CEO must not meet face-to-face with the second-in-command. Every critical function should be covered by two executives, and this approach should go all the way to the lower management levels. There should be an early mutual ‘handover’ of decisions to be made and actions to be taken for each pair of executives in case one of them is unable to work.

3. Go online

Make use of online conferencing tools and allow ‘social distancing’ through work-from-home allowance. For the process of making managerial decisions and taking actions, there is often no need to physically meet in a conference room. Luckily, there are great options available — even for free — to have internal and external discussions. This of course also requires management to trust employees with a work-at-home policy, and provide them with the IT infrastructure required. Often, this just requires a laptop to do online conferencing.

4. Strengthen communication

Communicate clearly and quickly with staff and external stakeholders, including suppliers and customers about the new business plans. Clarity is important in times of crises. Also ensure that communication is centralised in order to avoid ambiguous messaging.

5. Learn from the experience

After the crisis, make sure the company has learned the lessons. This can help with future planning for the next minor or major crisis. Going through this process will give a better understanding of the risks that could potentially disrupt the business.

Business and management

Media Release

08 April 2020