Future-Proofing Business Critical Than Ever

The priority in the new normal will be to create businesses that can withstand unanticipated stress

- Amit Jatia

In the words of singer Jimmy Dean, “I can't change the direction of wind, but I can adjust my sails to reach my destination.” I cannot agree more with this as my experiences have taught me that there is no alternative to staying the course during challenging times. This means having faith in yourself and backing your people to sail through tough times.

Just like Rome, a business isn’t built in a day. While its success depends on managing your existing resources and making the right decisions at the right time, it also means embracing the unknown and navigating the unchartered waters through agility and constant cost restructuring — simply, being open to evolution. The 25-year long journey of building McDonald’s in India has been exciting and rewarding. But it has also taught us the value of struggles, the significance of a crisis, and how it compels us to assess efficiency in an organisation.

And yet, despite all the preparations, some situations leave you stumped. Nothing could have prepared us for an unanticipated black swan event like the coronavirus pandemic and its economic fallout. But as they say, a good crisis is a terrible thing to waste. And at Westlife, we made sure that we turned it into an opportunity — an opportunity to make our business even more robust, empower our people and build new strengths.