The largest risk in a time of COVID 19 is not COVID?

I gave a talk on managing risk in a time of disruption and had a chance to get some survey data from a large financial executive audience. The questions and responses are as follows:

COVID is not #1:

The largest risks facing my organization are:

• 22% - from COVID 19

• 40% - from a likely recession

• 29% - from business model changes as a result of the above

• 9% - from risks that existed before COVID 19

The lesson? It’s not COVID that’s now the risk but the recession and the change in the business model.

The key to getting through:

The key to getting through strategy disruption is:

• 12% - seeing it before others

• 6% - understanding the speed

• 34% - being resilient

• 17% - interpreting the disruption

• 32% - linking the disruption to the business model

The lesson? First, try to get through but a close second is to figure out what the new business model will look like. Not a lot of strategy books talk about resilience but there are many that can help us think through the business model and how it might be impacted.