2020 ends with the start of the race towards global immunization, closures in Europe, and the new strain of Covid-19 that sets off alarms worldwide. During the pandemic, companies understood that their businesses must learn from uncertainty to adapt and survive amid the crisis.

Here are some of the strategies and visions of three C-Suite business leaders in Latin America: Google as the technology giant, ABInBev, the great beer maker, and Forbes as a benchmark in business content. Their approach for this column interview was based on his leadership role beyond his specific industries.

For Adriana Noreña (Google Latin America), Carlos Lisboa (ABInBev Middle Americas), and Mariano Menéndez (Forbes Publications); the 2020 Pandemic - Lockdown - Recession learnings for the upcoming year begins under three premises: Digital work culture, Planning from flexibility, and ‘Deep’ relationships with consumers.

1. Digital work culture: between efficiency and adaptation.

Lockdown will be a reality also to experience in 2021, definitely less severe, and with the second-semester arrival will fading in various parts of the world, however, working from home (at least twice a week), at least for 2/3 of the world’s executive workers become the best option. This model, beyond the adaptation processes of corporates, governments, and workers themselves, is projected as an opportunity to change the climate and work culture.

Adriana Noreña assures that the digitization of work will imply an “optimization of internal processes, management, and performance within the company: human development with a digital orientation.” This transformation is done “with the people and through training within the business plan so that they embrace the new world we live in,” Noreña shares.

It will be necessary that the team could drive “to create an ecosystem that feeds this new world: public, private and community alliances to change the relationship from face-to-face processes to the virtualization of things that we can do much more efficiently online.”

And the challenge is not less for Latin America: while in the region, 38% of the population does not have access to the internet (about 244 million people. IADB) according to the Office of National Statistics of the UK, 49.2% of workers were in homeworking, and Global Workplace Analytics estimates project that between 25% to 30% of the US workforce will work from home in 2021, thanks to the level of technological access that these countries enjoy.

2. Planning 2021: flexibility, research, and cuts.

The pandemic accelerated business digitalization (no secret). Interviewees assure that the process, expected to achieve in 5 to 10 years, was done six months due to the confinement.

The business plans of thousands of companies in the region changed due to isolation, business closures, cuts in production chains… which implied great learnings for business management: no matter how much time and effort a plan requires, it can change without prior notice.

For Carlos Lisboa, it is essential that for 2021 “world and business trends are clear to help decision-making.” including fundamental learning of quarantines around the world. Thus “volatility and uncertainty help to understand the organization’s ‘way of working’: by 2021, more speed, less bureaucracy and more agility in decision-making are needed,” Lisboa confirms.

Understanding uncertainty encourages the integration of a vision within the plans that provide ideas to adapt. For Mariano Menéndez, it is critical for 2021 “to make a deep dive on the sector and company concerning market realities: it’s important to realize losses, gains, advantages and competitive disadvantages in the face of the pandemic; cost reduction to face the crisis and analyze whether the company culture understood that we were entering a new era of business.”

The path will be investing in market research from a consultive perspective, with a greater focus on analysis rather than compilation (understanding that these three companies have permanent quantitative reviews) and the role of “technology and the use of data, as it helps to act effectively within a company, “ says Lisboa.

Then, strategies should be oriented to make decision-making in companies more agile and be the impetus for constructing opportunities with a future vision. And it is that “the pandemic exposed the possibility of new crises, health, scarcity of resources hand in hand with the events of climate change. We must rethink the sectors if our businesses can become a different one. Get out of economies of scale and see opportunities in technology, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and clean energy,” proposes Menéndez.

One of the solutions proposed by the leaders of large companies is to reduce costs. For Carlos Lisboa, “austerity allows you to have more resources to put them on the growth levers and bring the result you expect. Furthermore, austerity and resource scarcity connect as an opportunity that encourages creativity and innovation.”

Adapting and projecting the future is the most urgent strategy. Embracing uncertainty as a positive path to building good practice is essential in times of crisis.

An example is reflected in ECLAC’s projections that at the beginning of the pandemic said that the region’s GDP would fall by 5.3% in 2020, and in October, it was already at 9.1%. The changes that 2021 will bring are closer to uncertainty, and that is why the flexibility and business adaptation agility will make them successful.

3. Relationship with the consumer: deepen and provide solutions.

If, since always ‘the customer is right,’ now it seems to be almost mandatory. The growth of digital consumption is directly proportional to the power that buyers acquire in the process.

Adriana Noreña proposes that “approaching our consumers and users to model my business and be agile in changes” is the right way. That is why we must reach clients efficiently, and consequently, we must “think about the return of each dollar according to where we are investing,” says Noreña.

The relationship with the consumer starts from investigation processes. For Carlos Lisboa, “trends and insights are fundamental: the habits and attitudes in people’s lives are important to know about them, especially when the crisis has made us spend more time at home.” In this equation enters the increase in online commerce to do “data analysis and provide experiences for a personalized relationship and thus prevent your customers from leaving,” Noreña emphasizes: “giving an unmatched experience is now just a click away.”

In this evolved consumer understanding, not everything will improve product proposal and customer experience. In the ABInBev case, a project under the slogan “Ideas for good and growth,” Carlos Lisboa proposes that “companies should strengthen their role in the community as an essential part of the solutions they need and as support for their problems. That it must be aligned with a future growth strategy. “

These types of visions articulate the social and environmental commitment is a must for the future plan, were increasingly informed consumers would seek transparency in the products they consume, in addition to having a greater affinity with Millennial and Centennial consumers, who currently determine characteristics of youth and workforce-based consumer groups, not counting the awareness gained by Baby Boomers during the pandemic. Being good also brings you closer to the consumer, today, much more than before.

Retail has taken over the internet, and many have found solutions to reduce the risk of contagion. Despite the crisis, online sales in Latin America were the ones that grew the most in the world. According to eMarketer firm, e-sales grew in the region by 36.7%, compared to 31.8% in North America and 27.6% of the global average.

Strategies 2021: Knowing how great ones adapt and make decisions also help to make decisions. Our interviewees gave us a headline on their core strategies for this year:

Google: "To continue promoting accurate and quality information for all our users. We are going to contribute to the economic recovery of Latin America and help people stay connected."

ABInBev: "We will work with a Start-Up mindset, a great combination of business management during the crisis. A balance between 'deliver' and 'transform' with the speed in decision making and the ability to bet on new things without fear of being wrong. That has been our formula for success. "

Forbes: "Taking advantage of the brand and develop a vertical and horizontal brand for a global Spanish-speaking community with a single portal, with local and regional news. We seek to strengthen 'on-demand' content with visual development and style uniformity lowered the spirit of our brand".

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This year will weigh the new normal, the uncertainty about the speed at which the region can immunize its population, and adapt to the risks that the future will bring to be a business winner.

Agility in the face of uncertainty, having a foot in the future, and being flexible in the face of change, will be the ways to create a new era for the business world as the pandemic overcomes and the next crisis arrives.

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