Thanks to our global network we had some early warning in February and March last year with our Australian and Chinese offices being impacted immediately. This gave us time to do scenario planning on “what if the country was locked down?” We were able to do dry runs on working remotely, testing equipment, and understanding which staff needed support at home. When the actual lockdown occurred, we were well prepared, and it was fairly easy to transition to the remote working model. We were able to put a rigid contingency plan in place that covered cost saving and adaptive planningWe identified our priorities as protecting our people, maintaining our service levels to our customers and protecting our cash f low.We identified the risk that if revenue and margins declined, we needed a contingency plan to protect our business – this was critical for all stakeholders concerned. We put cost-reduction processes and risk-mitigating structures in place to ensure our balance sheet and liquidity was protected. The challenges we faced operationally related to new rules being constantly gazetted and the various stakeholders in the supply chain’s interpretation of these. While the ports continued to work, we struggled with the shipping lines in terms of delays in receiving the necessary docs, invoices, and releases. While management stayed in close contact to find strategic solutions to the challenges, our teams put in many hours to stay on top of the necessary activities to deliver the service our clients required. One year on, we continue to grow. Over the past months we have been able to bring in new, experienced team members, adding to our capacity and ability to deliver the necessary service levels and deliver “Peace of mind” to our customers. The world is moving at a very fast pace, which implies that there is and will be significant volatility and f luidity – and our ability to adapt accordingly is key. We were well placed to be f lexible enough, as an organisation, to come out of the pandemic stronger, more efficient and more profitable by focusing on the priorities. Communication is key and this needs to be done at multiple levels: senior management, middle management, and staff on the ground. The internal communication needs to f low through the organisation so that everyone has clear goals, and they understand their responsibilities and deliverables. The only way to get through any crisis is by having a committed team willing to put in the effort to get over the line. Communicating externally with our clients has always been – and remains – of utmost importance as we face challenges that have not been experienced before. In so doing, we have been able to build trust and grow our business. I don’t believe we have had one single change but have rather taken the learnings and efficiencies developed across the organisation to look at the drivers of our success. Having focused on our priorities and having a diversified customer portfolio has facilitated our financial success, and we continue to analyse and review our business and maintain our focus on the key drivers. We embrace the use of existing technology more effectively and we have realised that we do not have to rely on an office to operate effectively and efficiently. We have always managed our costs well, but with the uncertainty of the impact of the pandemic, we took an even closer look at our costs and we continually manage these with a conservative view. We stay even closer to our clients and ensure that we know and analyse the risks on regular basis. Paul Lawrence, managing director, Tigers South Africa
