For Corona, I found that we often pay too much attention to it and usually in the wrong way, ... the environmental analysis. External analysis and SWOTS are standard part of every marketing and sales plan. Unfortunately, usually with a lot of bla, bla without further elaborating the issues into concrete actions that we act upon. Now making an environment analysis is dire necessity, but do it right for once!

The world has changed quite a bit, to say the least. Planning now without thorough environmental analysis is lol. So get the models like STEP analysis or some variant of it out of the closet again. When you do a competitive analysis make, please look a little further than just comparing products and services. Include, for example, whether your competitor can keep their sales or marketing departments afloat in number of FTEs in these harsh times. Perhaps your competitor's weaknesses are now emerging that you can take advantage of.

Which is the same as before, but has become even more important.
Make a confrontation matrix , because otherwise making a SWOT also makes no sense in my opinion. Just highlight three points per quarter to start focusing on them very concretely and SMART department-wide and preferably organization-wide. FOCUS, not for nothing can be seen as the acronym of: "Follow One Course Until Successful," only then can you really make a difference. Dividing your attention makes you weak.

Resources
We have been looking for a few economic sources that can help you look ahead. We came up with the following sources that provide recent economic insights that take into account COVID-19 :

Do you know better sources? If so, please share. Even if they are more industry-specific sources.

Your best source of information
This is still "The Customer." How do they view the future? Tip: Focus first on the noises coming from the 20% of your customers who provide 80% of your sales. Then you yourself will have completed >80% of your external analysis.

Do you want to know how to summarize things in such a way that a sales plan remains on one a4? Then follow the master class Strategic Sales Planning and the Masterclass Profit Maximization. Be aware that the biggest pain with your customers right now is on the financial front. Unfortunately, most sales professionals have too little knowledge of this and only know the instrument of discounting. As a result, you may still find it difficult to get to the table at C-level. That is why we have just launched a new master class, Finance for Sales Professionals. With this you can make the difference.

Success, and stay healthy and prosperous.