Getting Back to Normal in Countries and Cities with a Strategic Planning Partner
Counties and cities across the USA need to consider now what measures can be applied “safely” to stimulate demand, by getting consumers out of their homes and businesses back to work. High unemployment over the next year and reduced revenues for both county and city coffers does not lend to an easy road ahead.
Your “war room” is working overtime, and there is a flood of new ideas, so now what? As a number of your senior managers consider their departments, they know too well there are always shortcomings when it comes to strategic/operational directives that are never realized correctly, executed as planned and/or over budget. This time it will be different, as there is no plan B.
FEMA, SEMA, and CARE will help in the short term if you have documented and recorded all your expenses and managed positive initiatives well. Copious notes on never-ending meetings to decide how to progress will not “cut it” for FEMA support, and so now is the time to have strategic digital systems in place that can give you reports from all your information sources. It’s the long-term cause and effect process!
While local decision-making, or steering, is likely the best option to maximize benefits, it will be challenging to implement. Authorities will need to align with a strategic planning partner to implement approved strategies, communicate with their residents, and implement mandated changes such as rules around physical distancing.
There has never been a post-recovery from a pandemic in our lifetime, and understanding the ramifications of modern-day society is not easy. Yes, we have better communications, social media, better support mechanisms, and an abundance of defined reports, as what we do now involves a global community environment.
Hypothetically, in the US the closed factories in one county are affecting research hospitals in Australia, or our farmers are requesting help to acquire fertilizer from South America, with closed borders now in place. Our universities have lost over 20% of their foreign students, and there is now an overflow of unemployed workers. How do we rationalize and coordinate? These are some issues that need to be dealt with now.
The complexity of modern society and local government is such that cities and counties are required to have many community meetings, and continually face being in a reactive situation as the economy slowly adjusts to the pandemic. As it turns out, coming out of this pandemic will be very costly, but can be assisted by the use of modern technologies combined with a Local Government Framework.
As quoted from ICMA: “Leaders are going to need a strategic framework to deal with this phenomenon properly. We’ll need to help people manage their stress and provide tools to help. We will need to focus on helping people feel connected by understanding we are all in this together.”
If you require a single source of truth with a combination of flexible reports that provide the chain of command and visibility on a single dashboard, tracking and reporting in real-time across your city or county, please contact us and we can show you how to our customers are adapting to the “new normal”.
