Repositioning in uncertain times — the case for rolling back to a stable version

Until now, I have been relatively mute regarding the current lockdown regulations our country faces. I won’t be creating an opinion piece here either, as I can assure you this event incites questions regarding deep belief, including religion, economics and politics, which during the best of times are sore points to be debated. The reality, however, is that we are living through an unprecedented and extremely unique time.

As the world grew closer and people are more globally connected than ever, we find ourselves in a situation of fear, panic and isolation. A species that is intrinsically designed for connectivity, is now scrambling to prepare themselves for extended periods of “aloneness” and tapping into the likes of Zoom, Google Hangouts, cloud and digital services to maintain a morsel of their status quo and operate from home. —

We’ve always been a remote-first business. Our stance has always been to maintain agility in our work, but even we have not avoided the massive crash against our economy - essential service or not - as many clients had to temporarily close their doors, while others had to shut down completely without an end in sight and not enough funds to pull through this risky situation.

LEADING FROM THE FRONT

Recently, I have been discussing our position in South Africa and one thing has remained consistent. People expect that when someone is leading, they do so from the front. Every great movie with a scene of a battle against an imposing enemy force has that one general, charging down the enemy lines, sword drawn and emboldening the masses to action. As a foreigner, I don’t really have a political affiliation in RSA, but what I can say is that I can back a president that is bold, decisive, and forthcoming. It is probably the main reason why I have decided to remain open and servicing our clients. There is hope. Our staff have taken salary cuts, I have frozen expense accounts and closed our office for the foreseeable future. We are now fully remote and continuing to serve our community as best as possible.

In addition, we have put into play our contingency plan for Switch Marketing. This means we are reverting to a previous version of our offering, which is more suited to small businesses and fully stable in a remote-first. world. This means we are doubling down on servicing businesses looking to make lemonade from lemons and truly build an agile business that can survive the pressures of a recession.

So, as we prepare to listen to what our president has to say this evening, let’s look for the opportunities that will come and prepare to pivot to face the oncoming war against the unknown. As for us at Switch Marketing, we are prepared to meet this head-on.

Tomorrow we will be announcing new measures and new releases, a date for a relaunched website and our battle plan to help businesses grow in spite of adversity. We’ll await the full debrief from President Ramaphosa and fill you all in as we go.

Thanks and stay safe!