12 May 2020 — COVID-19 is challenging humanity in a way that is different from past crises. CEOs know what it is like to worry about their business, employees, family, and community, but never all at the same time.

At the MBC Roundtable on “Planning for the Great Re-Tooling”, Bain & Co. Worldwide Managing Partner Manny Maceda and his colleagues discussed how companies can survive or even thrive based on previous crises. They said the pandemic highlights the key role that leaders play in defining strategy. They said agile leaders will be better able to navigate this downturn. And historically, these same leaders will outperform their competitors over the longer term.

To outrun COVID-19 and thrive in the future, Bain & Co says CEOs need to balance between protecting the business, accelerating recovery from COVID-19, and re-tooling their company to adapt to a changing world. 

The changing world may include reversals of decades-long trends: the growth of cities, globalization, falling interest rates, and cheap, plentiful labor.