Webinar report: Life after lockdown – collaboration is key

Working together and collaboration will be the new norm as Midlands firms come out of lockdown – that was the message from the panel on our latest webinar, held yesterday (15 April).

The event, entitled, ‘Be prepared for when the world unpauses’ saw over 200 business figures from across the region sign-up to listen to Andy Dawson or Curium Business Solutions, Susan Hallam of Hallam and Steve Allen of Mills & Reeve.

You can watch the entire webinar here

The trio talked about how businesses across the Midlands were coping with the lockdown, and how they could best position themselves to take advantage of the opportunities that will present themselves when the Government relaxes its measures.

Andy Dawson

Dawson said he was seeing a differing picture across the region.

“The kind of the trend on the last week has definitely been more businesses starting to look at structuring plans and trying to get clarity about where they are,” he said.

He continued: “In the early days it was very much about I guess the the rise of the HR director. Now, I think CFOs and FDs have been looking at numbers and looking at plan and I think in a week or two’s time, you’ll see as we’ll be starting to think: where are we going and how do we make sense of all this? But I think different businesses are certainly at kind of different points at the moment.”

Hallam said that some businesses were already in the process of change when the pandemic hit – and were now using those plans as a basis for something more wide-ranging.

Susan Hallam

She said: “Many of our clients have already invested in digital infrastructure. There have been change transformation programs that have been going on anyway, and, in some respects, I think the pandemic is perhaps accelerating change that might have happened anyway. But what it’s doing is it’s forcing it to happen. Now.

“The other thing I think that’s interesting in terms of resilience is that we are seeing clients at this point who are already investing in the future so that they are looking forward. They’re using this time to sit down and reflect and regroup. And they’re starting to prepare for when we come out of this. So I have to say I’ve been really impressed in terms of resilience. But then there have of course been companies that have been really, really, really hard hit by this as well.”

Steve Allen saw a more collaborative future, where businesses work together for the greater good.

Steve Allen

He said: “The one thing I’ve learned from this is how businesses are dependent on each other. Over the the last few weeks there has been less business rivalry and more of an understanding that we’re part of a bigger process. I think that’s going to sustain a lot of businesses going forward.

“If I can give you an example; as a litigator, I deal with commercial disputes for businesses. I’m getting a lot of inquiries at the moment about force majeure, frustration, illegality, all those sorts of contractual issues that you might expect. And what I’m finding that, you know, you can give some robust advice, but some of the advice I’m giving you at the end of the day is to pick up the telephone to your customer or within your supply chain, and to speak to them say: ‘look, we’ve got these issues, you must be having the same issues. Let’s try and resolve these.’ And the business owners are coming back and saying: ‘Well, actually, that was really good advice because we’re now moving forward together’.

So I think looking at resilience, we are all in this together. I think there will be a more supportive, hopefully business sentiment going forward.”