Management Masters Roundtable | Zhang Shujun: Revitalizing the Business from the Epidemic Hit

The COVID - 19 has disrupted the stability of economy and society, and many of the previously smooth flowing processes seem to get stuck or even fall apart. Getting stuck or falling apart may seem to cause the short-term "imbalance" in life, work and business only, but at a deep level, it reflects the insufficient supply or structural contradictions of professional, governance and market capabilities. Finding solutions from the pain points and contradictions where they fall apart may be a way to turn crises into opportunities, which contains abundant opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovation.

Entrepreneurship is about seeking and developing business opportunities. Generally speaking, there are basically three sources of opportunities: a) There is supply and demand, but no connection between them; b) There is supply but no demand; or there is demand but no supply; c) No supply and no demand, which would need to create supply actively for further demand. To develop the above three types of opportunities contained in where it gets hit by the epidemic, further improve medical professional capabilities, government social governance capabilities, and market organization capabilities are important means to prepare for the future, remedy the situation, prevent and respond to similar epidemics, and are also possibly way to revitalize business and entrepreneurship.

The first type of opportunity is to follow suit after learning the previous lessons, and to seek arbitrage opportunities in business activities across regions, markets, time and space.

The second type of opportunity requires us to either face the supply pain points (or lack of supply) exposed in the epidemic, or face "ineffective" supply (the mismatch between demand and supply), and strive to make up for the shortcomings.

The third type of opportunity is not intrinsically related to the epidemic, but epidemic will accelerate its development. Entrepreneurship and innovation activities are not driven by the market, but the market is driven through the active actions of entrepreneurs. The nature of opportunity is intrinsically the "supply automatically creates demand" out of nothing.