2020.02.19 / Viewpoint

Crisis is A Turning Point

The sudden epidemic crisis has disrupted the normal operations of many companies. Some companies have suffered serious impacts and struggling to survive, while others have ushered in explosive growth. The negative impact of this epidemic has huge impact on industries such as catering, tourism, transportation, entertainment, retail, finance, insurance, and even manufacturing industries such as electronics, automobiles, construction, and machinery. As a result of globalization, China has long been not only a world factory, but also a world market. Everything has two sides, and the the epidemic has also given industries such as medicine, biotechnology, robotics, Internet plus, and smart manufacturing a large number of applications and development opportunities in a short period of time.

As Warren Buffett, a famous global investor, said: "We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful". With every crisis comes opportunities. Since most people stay at home because of epidemic prevention, entrepreneurs have time to sink in and think about the core issues of business operation. After all, daily work usually keeps us busy, which makes it hard for people to think about the future in a deep and systematic way. This time, in order to prevent the epidemic, all of a sudden most people have lots of free time. Instead, several thoughtful and farsighted business leaders took advantage of this opportunity, and found us to assist in doing a comprehensive review of their enterprises.

Famous restaurant ‘Home Original Chicken’ Director Shu once said in a video: “No winter last forever; no spring skips its turn.” The epidemic will always end, but before that, the key to success in business would be whether we can get inspired and prepare early for future development. Take the catering industry as an example, comparing the industry performance during the SARS period in 2003 for medium and long term effect, the epidemic had the greatest impact on industry performance in the first quarter, and continued for one to two quarters. The first half of the year all food and beverages business suffered a decrease in profit. After the epidemic ended, catering consumption rebounded rapidly, profit even doubled, hence the impact on medium and long term effect were relatively limited. In the downturn of the industry, the leading companies in the industry will be more likely to survive. Once the industry recovers, these large companies will reap market share. The epidemic caused short-term effect and brought long-term development opportunities. For example, many catering businesses were forced to withdraw from the market; catering brands that did not provide take-out service started to invest in such service in response to the demand due to the epidemic. To sum up the conclusion of the dialogue with several business operators from catering, manufacturing, and financial companies, all thoughts collected were that main business focus should be to think about the future, direction, opportunities and innovation:

• Look to the future and let go of the past;
• Have a clear direction and do not follow blindly;
• Seize opportunity and solve all problems;
• Continue to innovate and have a correct mindset.

One of the unchanging truth in business operation and even in life is that "direction is always more important than speed". We think that after the peak of the epidemic, people's inner transformation is what we should pay attention to. As long as the corona virus exist, the demand and concern for health, safety, immunity will greatly exceed that of competitiveness, leadership or exection.

Lastly, in the words of Zhang Zong, "since I can't go to work, I will concentrate on making a good brand!" Working image will continue to work with enterprises in the current difficult time. Go China!