Onward and Upward

By Peggy Tierney Galvin, Chief Strategy Officer

Thanks to COVID-19, the global economy is staring down the barrel of a disruption event that will reverberate for years. For many companies, it’s time to pivot from a defensive crouch to figure out how to maintain your business in this era of extreme uncertainty, and even look for ways to leverage the disruption to find positive ways to transform and emerge even stronger.

That means asking a lot of questions. What about your “old normal” is vulnerable to disruption from a remote and sheltering-in-place workforce? From supply chain fragility? From upended consumer spending habits? What does your sales team need to be successful, now that events are virtual, and 95% of airplanes are empty? How are your vertical markets affected, and what types of old thinking are redundant? The upheaval in oil and gas and the emergence of clean, cheap energy is one example with the potential to redraw the world economy—and geopolitics, and climate—for decades.

On the flip side, what are the opportunities? Enterprise tech has emerged as a bright point on stock exchanges as organizations accelerate their dependence on digitized technologies and services. This, coupled with governments pumping massive stimulus funding into the global market, creates significant opportunity for tech vendors that help customers weather COVID-related disruption.

If you’re a startup or midsize company, now is the time to tack closer to big corporate partners with the resources to steer a course through choppy seas. They also have the resources to acquire your company, if a strategic exit is your organization’s best bet for survival. Cisco’s snapping up ThousandEyes for $1 billion is just the beginning. Recent research points to a forthcoming acquisition spree to futureproof product development.

Of course, most customers need help with today’s challenges before they can think about opportunities, so our guidance from our last newsletter—to really listen to customers to understand the challenges they’re facing right this moment, regardless of whether it’s related to your product—still holds true. How exposed are your customers to these changes, and how can you help? Sales enablement is the name of the game. The story of how your solution can be trusted to help your customers make their way through this crisis successfully.

Not all companies will make it. But there is opportunity for those who stick it out, and staying close to your customers and their needs is more important than ever.

Onward and upward.