BPMN 6023

Strategic Management
Feb 2022

MATRICULATION NO : 828381

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TELEPHONE NO. : 012-7616474

E-MAIL : bigben012@gmail.com

LEARNING CENTRE : UUM College of Business

Title: Managing the business strategies during and post pandemic

Introduction :

The purpose of this literature review is to understand on the common strategies that business had
implemented during pandemic and post pandemic as well. Especially with newfound Coronavirus that
was discovered in Wuhan, a typical sprawling city, and a thriving hub of commercial and industrial
activity, with a population of 11.08 million (Torsello & Winkler, 2020). For the next few months, the rest
of the world watched in awe as the Chinese government put all its power in trying to stop this new virus,
including a total lockdown of the Wuhan and strict control of domestic and international travel .Global
trade had now expected to fall by between 13% and 32% in 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic rampages
across the world, leaving a trail of death and destruction in its wake, almost paralyzing normal economic
activity, and social life in every country (WTO, 2019).

In this post-pandemic world, it is proposed that a fundamental shift in business strategies and managerial
thinking will occur and will be skewed towards greater risk aversion, nationalism, and protectionism
(Fontaine, 2020), pre-existing trends that they say the pandemic has now precipitated.

A. Literature Review

The literature review can be broken down to three main points, the need for business strategies, the ways
of handling the strategies during and post pandemic and the risk of uncertainty. Back in March 2020, we
saw a vast number of businesses close their premises, and huge numbers of staff were either furloughed
or started to work from home. Government from all over the world had introduced unprecedented
economic responses to help business and staff to weather the storm. As welcome as this support was, it
won’t last forever. COVID-19 has changed the business landscape for everyone and forced the
organization to revisit their business strategy.

As per Max Low (2021), the organizations need look into 3 main key strategies, such as transforming
their operations and financials, to reshape their strategy for post-pandemic recovery. And increasing
liquidity, leveraging scenario planning, and reducing the cost base are vital to financial resilience. At the
same, to consider strategic and portfolio reviews to drive growth beyond the crisis. During and post
pandemic, there was a need to understand the nature and types of business risks, setting up the process of
identifying risks and managing risks, so that the board are able make more conscious and well-informed
decisions on the back of their strategies. R. Kaplan and A. Mikes (2012) proposed a new risk
categorization that allows managers to determine which risks can be managed using a rule-based model
and which require alternative approaches. And this categorization will help us to mitigate the new
unforeseen risks on the back of this pandemic outbreak.

B. The Gap in the literature review

One of the papers had used an extensive review of the international business literature to address the
research gap by identifying the different types of uncertainty, the outcomes, but didn’t elaborate on the
business strategies used to mitigate the risk & impact. Another paper had mentioned that the business
articles in newspaper had been used as the basis of their study. However, these articles are scattered and
taken individually, the examples presented are rarely in-depth or significant. The scoping review method
appears to be a very relevant approach for synthesizing most significant information, resulting gaps in
research related to a defined area or field by systematically searching, selecting, and synthesizing existing
knowledge.

None of these articles articulated deeply on the type of strategies that a business organization need to
focus on to strive in the post pandemic market. And identifying the types of business continuity process
that can help to survive in the upcoming crisis. A questionable assumption need to be carefully weighed
against the advantages and disadvantages stemming from exploring new business strategies in a new
competitive environment, under the newly changed circumstances, for the most wealth-maximising
businesses.

C. Analyzing the articles

All the articles indicate that finding the balance between honoring the local buyers that had helped them
build their businesses and meeting the needs of their new clientele globally. Desperate times calls for
desperate measures, therefore the organization must overcome the challenges and explore globalization.
Other similarities or common trend would be that organization have to recognize that consumer tastes and
market trends change constantly, during and post pandemic. Management must embrace and incorporate
new technology as soon as it catches on and adjust their products to meet consumer’s need. Lastly, the
COVID-19-pandemic accelerated the business to find a new kind of growth. Compare the other two
articles, only one article emphasized why the future world economy will need globalization during and
post pandemic.
 D. Summary of Main ideas/ Main Finding

Summary of the main ideas Summary of the main findings

Stop thinking locally and move towards to
globalization
Adapting to market trends and innovations due to
the pandemics
Accelerating the business strategies and exploring
new kind of growth.
Organization’s failure in handling the uncertainty
on the back of the pandemic crisis.
Failure in adapting the business continuity
management in timely manner.
Inadequate development of the business strategies
during the pandemic and post pandemic.

E. Conclusion

The pandemic crisis had highlighted the importance of uncertainty that have been overlooked in business
strategies, and failure remediating will lead to inevitable economic repercussions. As many of these
countries now move towards gradual easing of these restrictions, it would be interesting to see how
quickly the businesses and economies bounce back (Business Standard, 2020). The main key challenges
in this would be the ability of governments and private businesses to predict the risk associated with each
stage of the reopening to manage the overall uncertainty associated with this process, to avoid the rise of
Covid-19 cases with similar or possibly even worse economic consequences.
References
Business Standard (2020). Covid-19 impact: World watches Italy as firms press government to reopen
economy, Business Standard, 8th April 2020. https://www.business-
standard.com/article/international/covid-19-impact-world-watches-italy-as-firms-press-govt-to-reopen-
economy-120040800448_1.html.
Max Loh, (2021) : How boards can reframe post-pandemic business strategies. In E&Y Blog :
https://www.ey.com/en_sg/board-matters/how-boards-can-reframe-post-pandemic-business-strategies
Kaplan, R.S., Mikes A. (2012), “Managing Risks: A New Framework”, Harvard Business Review, June,
https://hbr.org/2012/06/managing-risks-a-new-framework [Accessed 15 January 2020].
Torsello, M., & Winkler, M. M. (2020). Coronavirus-infected international business transactions: A
preliminary diagnosis. European Journal of Risk Regulation. https://doi.org/10.1017/err.2020.30.A useful
tool for family business researchers. Journal of Family Business Strategy, 5(1), 105–115

https://www.harvardbusiness.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/HBR-Preparing-your-Business-for-a-Post-
Pandemic-World.pdf