The crises of the last 25 years took a tenth of the time, and resilience (the ability to adapt and recover) helps companies succeed even in times as difficult as these, says Kirill Tuishev, managing director and partner at BCG, an international management consulting firm.

HOW TO BEAT THE INDUSTRY?

He said that BCG conducted research at the peak of the covid crisis among two thousand companies, and it quarterly studied the results to identify the key points that help leading companies systematically beat other players in their industry.

"We found that there is one universal and very significant attribute - resilience. It is the ability of companies to weather the crisis better than others, to adapt, to earn more and to recover. Actually there were only 10% of such crises during 25 years, but it was the time when leaders created one third of their breakaway from the industry," he said on St. Petersburg economic forum.

Tuishev called about 150 companies from this list "all-weather" because they "beat the industry both in crises and on sunny days".

During the pandemic, companies were guaranteed success by following three basic principles, according to Tuishev.

"First, they reacted earlier than others to the early signs of a crisis. One manufacturer, for example, launched a global anti-crisis program already on the first news that additional hospitals had begun to be built in Wuhan. "Secondly, they created airbags," he said, citing the example of an American tool manufacturer that, despite the difficult situation in spring, continued to build up its inventory and issue additional deferrals to its customers. With that, the company "won the summer," as that's when people started working on their plots and home repairs.

"Third, all of these companies were talking about resilience long before the crisis. It was part of their strategy, they were changing organizational structures, company culture," Tuishev said.

WHAT ACHIEVES THE BEST RESULTS?

According to the managing director of BCG, 70% of transformations companies do when faced with an obvious and big problem, and 30% are the so-called preventive measures.

"But if we look at successful transformations that have achieved results, 70% of them come precisely from preventive transformations," he concluded.