Taking Advantage of Tumultuous Times is a series of articles from Monitor offering insights into critical issues organizations face during this unprecedented period. Today’s economic uncertainties, combined with multiple, significant and disruptive forces, change the nature of industries and competition across the globe. The articles explain how business leaders can seize opportunities during these times for lasting change and growth.

Taking Advantage of Tumultuous Times: Mastering the Moment
By Eamonn Kelly

Recessions are always difficult, stressful and disruptive—but this one is like no other in history. In addition to a systemic banking and financial crisis, we are also in the midst of fundamental structural shifts that will lead to dramatic discontinuities in the global economy. As a result, after the inevitable business cycle recovery, we will find ourselves adapting to a new and very different economic order—one that demands different strategies, relationships, and capabilities. This paper describes the fundamental shifts taking place and the actions we must take to survive in the short term while positioning ourselves to thrive in the near future.

Corporate Strategy in Uncertain Times
By Dan Baruchi and Max Weise

How should your company navigate these challenging and highly uncertain times? We believe the answer lies in incorporating uncertainty into strategic decision making. Rather than adopting a single deterministic view of the future, firms should explore a range of potential future scenarios in order to uncover new opportunities and threats to their business, and respond with winning strategies.

The Innovation Imperative
By Bansi Nagji and Jeff Wordham

Recessions and times of uncertainty present unusual opportunities. In these times, companies need to seize new opportunities not by retrenching, but by rebalancing: focusing on the right innovation projects and then executing those innovations more efficiently, effectively and creatively. By doing so, we believe companies can generate superior results and emerge from the current downturn more competitive than ever--and they can do so without increased budget or investment.

Shifting the Curve of Cost and Value
By Josh Lee

Directives to cut costs across-the-board do not work. Instead, companies should employ an approach that maps costs to strategic business activities. Adaptive cost management helps identify the right costs to cut, aligns the organization and its spending structures so that costs do not creep back in, and protects and strengthens the organization for the long run.

Spending Smarter on Marketing in Tumultuous Times
By Jennifer Lacks Kaplan, Mark Pocharski and Victoria Levy

Facing a sharp economic downturn and fundamental shifts in the way buyers learn and make decisions, companies must adapt their mix of marketing expenditures and develop new models for customer engagement. These new models, informed by insight into how customers think and behave, welcome shoppers’ involvement in shaping when, where and how they receive information and how they interact with products and brands.

Defending Profitability with Proactive Price Management
By Tom Nagle, Joseph Zale and John Hogan

Successfully navigating this recession requires a proactive approach to protect and grow margins. In such uncertain times, business leaders need to identify moves that generate cash flow in the short term while also positioning their organizations for long-term profit growth. This article identifies smart moves that will help you take advantage of opportunities to improve your competitive position.