It's hard to go a day – or an hour – without
hearing about the 'unimaginable' scale of COVID-19. The
extreme crisis beyond comprehension. An unforeseeable event –
apparently. Whether it is a 'black swan' event or not will
be debated – and probably litigated – soon enough. Its
cause might even be the subject of a global inquiry if the Prime
Minister has his way.
But as the fight for survival inches slowly towards recovery,
businesses that spend the coming years immersed in internal
navel-gazing and restating risk strategies confined only to the
immediate context of a global pandemic will repeat the same mistake
that has contributed to so much of their current hardship.
The financial pain of COVID-19 is in that sense the symptom, not
the root cause, and reactionary responses from businesses in a
post-coronavirus world may offer some immediate relief but will not
be a magical future-proofing cure.
