Defining trends for 2021 and beyond

On April 22, the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber hosted its first signature event of 2021, the annual business meeting which was held virtually.

The meeting’s theme – Change that matters: Defining trends for 2021 and beyond .... Achieving your company’s greatest potential – was selected against the background of understanding that although the pandemic continues to have broadbased negative impacts on the performance of the economy, there have been encouraging signs of adaptation by firms to pandemic induced constraints.

Describing these as “shifting and uncertain times,” the new chamber president, Charles Pashley noted, “Our country is once again at a point of inflection, our dependence on energy has resulted in our fortunes being subjected to the wild swings in pricing and supply availability, which continue to challenge the revenue and foreign exchange earning capacity of the economy, yet our focus on energy has distracted us from the economic transformation needed to diversify the earning streams of our country and our economy.”

This year, we were pleased to host partners from the globally-respected McKinsey and Company, Justin Sanders and Keith Martin, who delivered the keynote address. Sanders and Martin in 2020 co-authored an article for McKinsey – This way out: how leading companies chart a full potential COVID exit.

Sanders noted that the industries which accounted for that accounted for 75 per cent of TT’s GDP and have been affected by mega trends resulting from covid19. This diversification of earning streams can only be achieved through a healthy and vibrant private sector. The keynote presentations spoke to what companies are doing to emerge from covid19 in a position of strength and identified six global mega-trends:

• a prolonged shift to remote work

• e-commerce transformation

• digitisation of business activities

• organisational speed and agility

• intensified reskilling of the workforce

• sustainability and resilience

However, organisational transformation is no easy task. As Martin pointed out, statistics show that only 30 per cent of companies succeed while the 70 per cent of companies that fail have some characteristics in common.

Decades of research has shown that the inability to transform is almost always due to people, ie resistance to organisational change. The leaders of the organisation may not support the changes in behaviour (33 per cent), or the employees resist change (39 per cent). The onus is therefore on the leadership to accept such changes and help employees understand and participate in organisational changes.

So what is the formula for success? Experience has shown that successful transformers make big moves to improve performance (productivity and differentiation from competitors) and portfolio (mergers and acquisitions and divestments, dynamic resource allocation, productivity out of assets). Organisations that make radical improvements get much more benefits.

The three steps to optimising post-covid19 recovery/transformation consist of (i) having a clear, independent and unvarnished view of what is actually possible for the business. This will help you understand exactly what moves you need to make to improve performance and portfolio; (ii) understand the interdependencies and implications of timing these moves – which can happen concurrently and which have to happen in sequence but ultimately ensuring that they are all complementary; (iii) structure a covid19-exit programme based on the understandings derived which will have thoughtful sequencing and maximises value creation.

While the research was not undertaken in TT, the evidence of emerging trends is very similar to the local landscape. Our business community will have to make changes to transform into a new post-covid19 reality and their success will depend on their agility and adaptability.

The chamber is pleased to make this Zoom webinar with McKinsey and local business leaders Maria Daniel of EY, John De Silva of LASCO Distributors, Shaun Rampersad of RAMPS Logistics and Chamber president Charles Pashley available in our online library at www.chamber.org.tt.