WHA Webinar on Post Covid19: Strategy and Framework for Emerging Risks and Recovery Opportunities

WHA Group recently organized a “WHA Investor Club Webinar” with Mr. William Malek, Senior Executive Director of the Southeast Asia Center (SEAC), as its special guest speaker.

During the one-hour webinar, befittingly entitled "Post Covid19 - Strategy and Framework for Emerging Risks and Recovery Opportunities," Mr Malek enlightened participants on how to assess the disruption scenarios that the Covid19 crisis may generate in various industries, and emphasized the importance of creating strategies early to minimize its consequences on businesses.

As part of his presentation, Mr Malek explained that the current Covid 19 crisis is more than a “Black Swan” event, in reference to the bestselling book authored in 2007 by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He expounded on how this is a double Black Swan situation, as it affects people’s health and the economy simultaneously, not to mention the crisis’ magnitude that affected almost overnight important businesses such as Retail, Airlines, Tourism and Travel, Automotive, and many more

To counter the negative consequences of the crisis, according to Mr Malek, companies need to act with discipline and speed. “If you don’t actively mitigate the right risks, they will actively attack you,” he pointed out, encouraging companies to adopt a new Black Swan response, based on five management practices:

• - Strategic Foresight
• - Crisis Scenario Management
• - Risk Management
• - Disruptive Innovation
• - Agile Execution

Mr Malek invited each organization to assign one or several people as “signal watchers” to look out for and assess weak signals as indicators of potentially emerging issues. He cited the example of the oil barrel price going down to the unprecedented level of zero USD that will have huge consequences on the economy.

The next step, for each industry, consists of assessing its main risks and defining the most likely scenarios to find the best path to recovery.

Stressing the necessity of making the most of the limited time and keeping things simple, Mr Malek called on companies to prepare time-based worst and best scenarios for two periods: during the crisis and immediately after it. This exercise should lead companies in each sector to deliver what he called the “Executive Declaration”, i.e. the company management’s messages to all its stakeholders, including employees, customers and business partners. In conclusion, Mr Malek stressed the importance of agile leadership in such crisis times. “Some industries might even discover new opportunities to expand, like online video conferencing platforms or food delivery businesses,” underlined Mr Malek.

In addition to the Q&A session between the Webinar participants and Mr Malek, Ms. Siyaphas Chantachairoj, WHA Group Director of Corporate Marketing, took the opportunity to present WHA’s Business Continuity Plan (BCP) in place since March 23 to protect its employees and support its customers and business partners.

Link to Webinar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zde1BYYjJrk