By Rita Chioma

As global executives made projections for the 2020 calendar year, even the most astute scenario planners could not have foreseen the events that would unfold just three months down the line.

While the rest of the world went about business as usual in the last quarter of 2019, events in a certain province of China would change the world as they knew it, forever.

Four months into the new decade, the world reads like a dystopian Hollywood feature film. The impact of the novel coronavirus continues to be felt across every corner of the world, across every industry and across every household. Words like furloughs, layoffs, bailouts and recessions now hug the spotlight, heralding even darker days to come.

The United Nation projects that the novel coronavirus outbreak could cost the global economy up to $2 trillion dollars this year alone. But this comes as no surprise. Flights, hotels and travel are all but banned. Factories are shut.

Nationwide stay-at-home orders are rolling out from country to country, limiting human contact, keeping businesses sheltered, and cutting off global supply chains and trade. It is now the world’s worst kept secret that many businesses–big and small– will be casualties of the pandemic that shook the world to its knees and put its economy to the sword. Unfortunately, many of these businesses will be SMEs run by young executives. And no country stands more to lose, than Africa’s most populous country.

Nigeria has seen a resurgence in entrepreneurship in recent years thanks to the emergence of a new generation of self-starters defying the odds to create employment and wealth in a country branded by the World Health Organization as the poverty capital of the world. But a global pandemic presents a challenge on an entirely different scale. Especially when you consider that the International Monetary Fund predicts that Nigeria is well on course to face its worst recession in 30 years. This leaves the country’s resilient self-starters and young executives in the biggest fight of their youthful careers.

Over the last few weeks, every executive, regardless of the size of their organizations, the scale of their operations or the number of markets they serve has had to answer one not so simple question: How can you overcome the pressure of COVID-19 and its impact on margins, profitability, growth, investment and human capital?

While some executives have been able to draw from their wealth of experience having successfully steered their businesses through a recession, epidemic or both–and with battle scars to prove– young leaders find themselves in unchartered territory, with their young companies faced in a death-match with the coronavirus, where only one will emerge.

For this reason, seasoned leaders at the helms of some of the best companies in Nigeria have opted to share their wealth of experience and knowledge for one simple reason: If Nigeria and Africa will continue to make progress and finally fulfill the potential it has long-promised, the older generation will need to provide guidance for their younger counterparts.

READ ALSO: COVID-19: Delta Speaker, Oborevwori tasks Nigerian workers on safety rules

“The fear of losing revenue and customers and the urge to do something right away because of the pressure that comes with being responsible for staff and dependents back home makes it tough for young leaders to pause, take a step back and assess the situation objectively and extensively. But it is important to be able to see the full picture in order to identify what must be done” says Raymond Dokpesi Jr., Executive Chairman of DAAR Communications PLC, Nigeria’s largest Independent Media Organization.

He implores young business owners to ‘think outside the box–but act rationally’, noting that great entrepreneurs don’t always have to be great strategists, they just need to be able to make calm, rational decisions when all hell breaks loose around them. “Lean on your mentors and trusted third-eyes who can point out areas of opportunity and potential pitfalls. This is the worst time to work in silos. Collaborate.” says, Onyekachi Okechukwu of global consultancy, KPMG.

With vaccines not expected for at least another few months, Ikechukwu Maduka, Chief Executive Officer of leading Nigerian marketing agency, Nelson Reids explains that customer needs are rapidly evolving and businesses must adapt to these changes to survive.

“With job cuts, reduced income and an increasing number of dependents, you can expect consumer spending power to take a hit in the short to medium term. Resources will become even more stretched and deliberately allocated to brands that retain top of mind and can meet their new needs, no matter how peculiar.

Brands must approach customers with empathy because, like them, customers are also experiencing life-altering changes to their way of life and their needs are likely changing as they come to terms with the situation of things and build their lives around this new reality. So young executives must find a way to identify and serve these emerging needs.”

As Nigeria mount a resilient defence against the coronavirus, Adetola Onayemi, Assistant Chief Trade Negotiator for Nigeria & Head of Trade Remedies at the Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiations, expects opportunities to emerge for the service industry and to bring some manufacturing of key products in-house. But warns that interested parties will need to learn fast and learn well. “Solving the biggest development challenges that arise as a result of the Covid-19 will require creative thinking. Nigeria is in a unique position and as such cannot afford simplistic ideas that only apply cosmetic covers to these problems. We must dig for what the real issues are and then address those issues swiftly”

He believes that global trends will change and the global value chain for manufacturing will be re-imagined. “How products are made and move from one end of the world to another will be re-designed. The aim will be to avoid relying on only one focal point for all of the world’s supplies. Countries, as a matter of economic security, and companies will be focused on creating several points where manufacturing and global supply can be met from”. That is one place Nigeria can increase manufacturing capacity to meet the global need for new sources of production capacity. He states that Nigeria is already seeing instances of re-purposing factories for items that are needed during the pandemic like PPEs, gloves, etc.

He hopes this coupled with the continental opportunities offered by the AfCFTA will afford an opportunity for Nigerian businesses to re-imagine their supply chain, become more nimble and adaptable, and expand into new areas of opportunities. He also argues that “It offers an opportunity to imagine the future of work and productivity in Nigeria, drive internet connectivity as a necessary infrastructure for driving global relevance for Nigerian businesses and service providers, focus on industries (such as technology, online platform workers and services businesses) that will power the global economy, re-design the efficiency of our labour force by focusing on productivity through policies like Work From Home programmes, measuring impact based on results and not purely human-hours spent, and building an economy driven by human capital development and technology. It is a goldmine for changing the dynamics of our economy and shifting towards the industries that will drive the future”

With many now rightly considering ‘normal’ as we know it to be lost forever, executives would be better served bracing for the new world that would emerge as a result of the pandemic according to Samson Davids, ex-CMO of NICON insurance. He retorts that executives need to build new competencies if they are to strategically position themselves in the new world about to emerge. But he warns about the detriments of jumping in without design or strategy. Or worse–moving too slowly.

Vanguard