Distilled Post sits with our CEO, Zain Ali to discuss how businesses must rethink global expansion approaches to survive the pandemic.
2021-03-17
How can businesses grow beyond restrictions imposed by COVID-19?
In a world where an enterprise is still held hostage by pandemic restraints, international growth might seem an impossible endeavour.
Certainly, organic growth has been challenging in these times. The challenges posed by business internationalisation are more complex than ever, due to restrictions on travel, conducting due diligence and establishing operational collateral in foreign geographies. In tandem, the pandemic shook the foundations of every international market, upheaving long-founded supply chains and regulations for expanding businesses.
Above all, the impact of the global health crisis exposed vulnerabilities in the way business mitigate social and economic threats; particularly those caused by conventional framings of development and global growth. According to a KPMG white paper, the companies that could not sustain operations throughout the pandemic were those that failed to ‘seize opportunities offered by digital or hybrid solutions. The KPMG analysts advise executives to look beyond conventional means of survival:
‘Companies need to shift their focus to new opportunities. Companies on the lookout for emerging opportunities early on may find opportunities to create added value’
COVID-19 proved the need for organisations to outgrow existing operational fragilities, and to go digital. Several long-standing organisations that failed to adopt next-generation capacities faltered under pandemic pressure. They faced barriers that could have otherwise been avoided by more interconnected approaches.
In light of last year’s events, businesses need to pre-empt the success of newer approaches to internationalisation. Nominally, they need to consider the benefits of hybrid service offerings and product platforms that will ease the expansion progress for them.
Zain Ali, CEO of global expansion company Centuro Global, believes that businesses will succeed by adhering to platform-based approaches to internationalisation. He identifies the trends and potential roadblocks that expanding organisations might face in the short and long-term, and how expansion solutions like Centuro Global’s ‘Go Global’ and ‘Centuro Connect’ offerings could remediate these bottlenecks.
