On Monday, April 18, UAFM together with Valery Pekar talked about the war for independence.

Valery Pekar, lecturer, lecturer at Kyiv-Mohyla Business School and Lviv Business School of the Ukrainian Catholic University, author of two books and more than 250 articles on management, marketing, futurology, member of the Board of Directors of the World Association of the Exhibition Industry UFI shared with the UAFM audience an expert opinion on the war in Ukraine for its independence and revealed the following topics:

1. The essence and causes of war
2. Scenarios and phases of the war
3. Image of victory
4. Why Russia won’t win
5. How Ukraine can win
6. Important internal changes: Russia, the world, Ukraine
7. World and Ukraine after the war
8. What to do now
9. Where can I get the strength for this?

You can get the full information from the webinar in the video, and in this article, we publish structured information about the management of the furniture business during the war.

 

“There can be no specific advice on how to overcome the crisis because each crisis is unique. The benefits of crises are rather moral: we survived this, we will survive this,” says Valery.

What can be advised?

• The crisis multiplies by zero the previous experience
• This has not happened before
• Crises:

1. 1991 – 1993
2. 1998 – 1999
3. 2009 – 2010
4. 2014 – 2015
5. 2019 – 2020

“It’s very important to go through all these stages of accepting reality and accepting reality as it is, to understand what your situation is.”

What stage are you at?

• Objection
• Anger
• Depression
• Adoption

What is your situation?

• Business running
• Partially closed
• Relocation completed
• Relocation possible
• People fled
• All bombed out

What to do?

• Don’t Be Optimistic: Paranoids Survive
• Save the main thing (and what is the main thing?):
• rooms and machines
• People
• brands
• customer relations

If you are working

• Short-term budgets and manual control, cash is a queen
• Quick, not perfect solutions
• Nothing extra:

– People

– Expenses

– Business processes

– Projects

“I always advise in a situation of maximum uncertainty to resort to scenario planning. You must have multiple business scenarios. Choose according to the situation.

Scenario planning

• Scenario A by mid-May
• Scenario B by early September
• Scenario B before the end of the year
• Scenario G over a year

(this is just an example, you may have other frames).

War accelerates trends

Housing

• Many displaced people
• Remote work: not only a dream
• Zoning and space for hygge (PTSD): after the war, many people will have post-traumatic stress disorder, so housing must have a place to calm down
• Renting and cohabitation: This item is associated with a large number of displaced people, people who cannot decide on a permanent place of residence and often move. Therefore, you need to think about making furniture that is convenient to transport.
• Less pathos, more eco. People will want to get more quality for less money and will not be willing to pay for pathos

Office

• Hot desks and meeting spaces. The trend toward remote work that began with the coronavirus continues to gain momentum, so all the trends related to the arrangement of offices during this period will develop. Office workers will require more space for meetings, which can be achieved by reducing the number of tables, not assigning jobs to specific workers, that is, using hot desks
• Flexibility is an absolute principle
• Co-working as a meeting place where employees will come to meet, discuss business, arrange a project team meeting, agree on principles
• Less pathos, more eco
• Ergonomics

Trade and public spaces

• Church of the 20th century People will continue to meet, so public spaces will function as temples of modernity and are likely to become less commercial and more entertaining.
• Life is returning. People will need meetings and entertainment one way or another, perhaps public spaces will be visited less, but still, they will not stop doing it.
• Flexibility. Furniture manufacturers for shopping centres need to be even more flexible and respond to consumer needs on time

More trends

• Long cycle vs fast fashion
• Purchase as an investment in comfort and in yourself
• 5 senses
• Flexibility and multifunctionality
• Rich and natural colours
• Fusion (mixing different styles) and humour to help overcome post-traumatic stress
• Greens and water
• Fewer sharp corners
• Conservatism and postmodernism

Global value chains

• China is even further away. Trust in China has decreased due to an uncertain position in the war, while Ukraine, on the contrary, has received a strong brand, which should be used
• Produce here: Made in closer
• Clusters, alliances, cooperatives, cartels
• Trust = key. UAFM plays the role of a trusted association that brings together key market leaders, and small and medium-sized businesses in order to breakthrough in foreign markets together.

Three horizons

It is very important for entrepreneurs and top managers to live simultaneously in three horizons:

• just now
• End of the war
• Preparing for the jump

War turns the page

• Trend Acceleration
• “Business as always” will no longer be
• Redistribution of markets:

– the end of dinosaurs and fragile companies that cannot withstand stress

– beginners are like grass after rain

• Newmarket niches
• Replenishment of the team
• Depreciation of assets
• Time for new alliances

“It is not the strongest or the smartest who survive, but the one who adapts best.”

Weapon of our victory

• Strategic vision
• Faith in people, brand and team
• self-organization
• Environment of trust
• Ready for change
• Maturity
• The task of the leader is to show hope and the way to it.

Welcome to the VUCA world

• Volatile – changeable
• Uncertain – insecure
• Complex – complex
• Ambiguous – ambiguous

Mindset = worldview

• Growth
• openness
• Development
• Service

“It determines how things will develop in you and around you.”

Mindfulness = Mindfulness

“It is to live here and now”

Compassion = Compassion

“Constant sympathy for every person, every living being”

Resilience = Vitality

• Survive and recover
• Move on despite adversity

“We will lose, we will lose, we will fall, but the important thing is that we can suffer small defeats as many times as we like, but in the end, we will win a big victory. We can no longer control anything and the risk must be accepted, it is necessary, in spite of everything, to endure, recover and move forward despite the fact that you fall at every step.

Selflessness = Impersonality

“Thinking that we are all mortal, and we can die, and the business can die, but life will go on without us, which means there is no point in being afraid.”

Passion

“The passion that daily gets us out of bed in order to do our daily business, if it weren’t for this passion, we would have stayed there on the bed.”

The new grow through the old

“The new grows through the old with great pain, but this pain is a companion of life. And the living always defeats the dead, even with great pain, and the dead is able to quietly crumble, collapse and become a thing of the past without any pain. The past cannot win.”

Friends, although it is hard for all of us now, we are together, we are ready to change, to be flexible and decisive, we have our unity and our cause, we will certainly win! Please follow the updates on social networks and subscribe to the YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/UAFM_YouTube so as not to miss anything important for you and your businesses.