I caught up online with Adam last week and asked him to share his views on the future of business post Covid-19. This is what he had to say.
Future of business post Covid-19
Like most entrepreneurs, I’m a paranoid optimist, so I like to think things will get back ‘normal’, albeit normal is likely to be a different to what we’re used to.
Working from Home
The notion of working from home becoming standard for everyone doesn’t make a huge amount of sense. For some people, working from home is ideal – if you’ve got a role which doesn’t need significant collaboration and you’ve got a very significant travel time, the ability to work from home for 2-3 days a week is a massive benefit to efficiency (and general happiness levels).
My personal view is no one should from home all the time. Spending a couple of days a week with colleagues in the office (if possible) is a great middle ground, even for people with jobs that don’t require lots of close contact. The exception to that is parents with small kids, in that case, the efficiency gained can be outweighed by the time needed to care and educate the children.
How do you run your business?
Every business is different but the most critical aspect to dealing with COVID19 is cashflow and making sure you have enough runway. Even the biggest businesses need to be preparing for the worst (but hoping for the best).
Several start-ups I work with have raised capital at much lower valuations than they would have done a few months ago, but ultimately, survival is far more important than hyper growth at the moment.
That said, it’s also important not to spend every waking hour worrying about survival – build your runway and then start focusing on accelerating out of the turn. Now is the perfect time to be building great products and getting your customer focus laser sharp for when demand eventually returns.
Background of Adam Schwab
Adam Schwab is an award-winning entrepreneur, he is Co-founder of LuxuryEscapes.com – is one of the world’s fastest growing travel websites, with more than two million members accessing our limited-time offers at ‘insider’ prices. Luxury Escapes into one of Australia’s most profitable e-commerce companies in with operations in four continents and more than 200 team members, Luxury Escapes turns over more than $550 million annually. Lux Group was #1in the 2013 BRW Fast 100 list (and on the Fast 100 Lists in 2014 and 2015), and most recently Luxury Escapes were voted one of Australia’s coolest places to work.
“We’re proud to be on the world’s favourite retailers with one of the highest customer satisfaction scores of any business, anywhere on earth.”
Since 2004, Adam has been a financial journalist and business commentator specialising in corporate governance, economics and legal affairs for Crikey and BRW. Adam is a regular commentator on Business View and the Perrett Report on Sky Business and has appeared on Today Tonight and Channel Seven News nationally. Adam was named Young Executive of the Year in the CEO Magazine Executive awards 2015 and was nominated for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2014.
Author: In 2010, Adam released the Amazon bestseller, Pigs at the Trough: Lessons from Australia’s Decade of Corporate Greed, published by John Wiley & Sons.
Current roles:
Director: Adam has been a director of the Myeloma Foundation of Australia since 2010, and has run two Melbourne Marathons completely barefoot to raise funds for the foundation. Adam is a Mentor at Startmate, Chapter Membership officer at Young Presidents Organisation, Non executive director at Private media, Non executive director at Lux Everyday, Non executive director at bluthum and Executive chairman of book well.
Previous experience
Lawyer: Adam was originally a corporate lawyer specialising in mergers & acquisitions at HerbertSmithFreehills before founding Luxury Escapes with school friend, Jeremy Same.
If you are keen to chat about the future of business, our planet? Digital marketing? or just want to get a virtual coffee? We would love to hear from you.
We have had the pleasure to work with Adam and his team from very early on, Justin our creative director was responsible for crafting many of Adams brands over the years.
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