MUMBAI: As we now stand in 2021, I remember a strategy quote by Sissy Gavrilaki which reads, “Failure is nothing more than a chance to revise your strategy.” When the bullet of Covid2019 pierced through our uneventful and routine lives, we didn’t know what hit us. There was pandemonium, anxiety, struggle, outbursts all around us – in every household of every city belonging to every country. All we saw, heard, spoke of was Covid2019 which had become the centre of all our lives and livelihoods.
Uncertainty became a constant in our lives. As we realised that the path ahead would be undefined, all we could now do was reflect, reassess, redetermine, revalue, re-strategise, realign and run forward with a redefined strategy for our respective businesses.
Strategy, to think of it, is a word with a simple meaning – a detailed plan for achieving a goal. But execution of a plan has its layer of complexity coupled with strategic vision. As we faced the pandemic, the first question which arose in front of our eyes was, ‘What happens to the business strategy which affects the outcome of goals, that in turn impacts revenue, which ultimately defines the future of our respective businesses’?
This simple yet alarming question was to be addressed and thus began the path to re-strategise in the Covid2019-dominated world. Each sector carved out its own innovative ways to re-strategise its business plans. Somewhere the strategy was to pause, somewhere it was to slow down, at some places it was to dismantle and while at others, to move forward. Each of these strategic steps redefined the business model, which redefined each human being’s life cycle which now consisted of new patterns, behaviours, lifestyles, cultures and most important habits.
As a start-up media network fuelled by the fire of ambition, we decided to stand together with the vision ‘united we stand, divided we fall’ to combat the avalanche of issues created due to Covid2019. Reassessing plans to ensure we achieve our goals in an uncompromised fashion became the need of every second and every hour at IN10. Grit, hard work, focus, teamwork became the artillery in our mission to stay on the targeted track of our business goals.
The pandemic taught me a very simple lesson – ‘What not to do.’ Yes, since the time we make a dramatic entry into this vast universe as human beings, we are taught ‘what to do’ at each level of our life. But as we grow out of the cocoon and take our steps on the road to adulthood, no one tells us, ‘What not to do.’ Now, as one of the most gruelling years of the decade comes to an end, I sit back and reflect on what I learnt ‘not to do!’
(The author is VP - corporate strategy and development network, In10 Media. Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to her views.)
