We have surpassed 40 days of MCO. We are getting used to the new normal. We are looking forward to post-MCO.

Our government has introduced the PRIHATIN and additional PRIHATIN stimulus packages to assist the people and business owners. Some are enjoying and benefitting from them while some are still complaining about the lack of assistance given to specific industries.

Business Continuity Plans

Our company enforced the WFH (work from home) policy a week before MCO was announced. We believed it would be safer and better for everyone to stay at home when WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic. When the MCO kicked in, we immediately assessed our cash reserves and outlined drastic and strategic changes to be made in the short, medium and long runs. We call them our Business Continuity Plans.

Agility in business is now even more critical and required by companies to wade through this challenging period. We realised changes to our current customers’ need and business models had to be done immediately without delay. We embarked on several new initiatives that could sustain us during and post MCO. Evenesis Online Events was launched within a week and JomCariKiah.my a few weeks later. For these to happen, it requires agile captains or leaders in an organisation to react and respond quickly to the shift in the overall market conditions.

When there is no demand due to MCO, existing businesses will suffer badly. We could either stick to what we know best and suffer huge losses in the next few months, or pivot our business model to find paying customers.

COVID-19 Total Care Package

We introduced our COVID-19 Total Care Package to our potential and existing customers, encouraging them to move to online events instead of waiting for the physical events to happen, in which none of us would exactly know when.

Weekly webinars were conducted to educate our industry on the need to adapt to the new normal. Pivoting is challenging but necessary for companies to survive. As businesses become more agile, pivoting will become easier.

Great innovation surfaces during the hardest times. The challenges are aplenty and opportunities to solve problems are there to be capitalised. As a digital provider for events, we had to go out of our comfort zone and explore every bit of pain out there.

Be Agile, Pivot and Innovate

An idea to develop a tool to provide maximum exposure for the micro entrepreneurs and SMEs at a minimum fee to the public was tabled in our management meeting. It was codenamed ‘Kiah’ which symbolises the micro and small business owners in our country.

The JomCariKiah.my initiative was born and launched recently. It is meant to introduce the ‘Kiahs’ to the general public via video interviews, pictures of their businesses and write-ups.

We are enabling them to receive more orders on their products and services, valuable feedback and testimonials, and enjoy benefits from our partners. This is innovation at its simplest form - creating a platform that would benefit many businesses and individual operators to ensure their stories are heard and they are able to stay afloat.

With the ability to go agile and pivot, organisations would be able to come up with an innovative solution based on the market needs.

I believe many more organisations and businesses would be able to relate to our experience and, hopefully, would be able to implement the methods that I introduced as API. Be Agile, Pivot and Innovate.

-- BERNAMA

Yusno Yunos is the CEO & Founder of Evenesis - Y Us Sdn Bhd.