What problems caused by the Ukraine-Russia war might become opportunities for innovation?

The pandemic outbreak exposed some fragilities of #globalization, namely in what concerns certain goods manufactured in China, namely food and semiconductors…

It was fantastic to see how problems like shortage of masks and Protective Equipment for Healthcare professionals led textile companies that had to stop production (as fashion stores had to close doors) to pivot and start manufacturing of these goods.

This was a case study in Europe, textile companies (some of the most traditional organizations) were able to manufacture masks and PPE quickly and maintain their production lines working as well their employees.

Local restaurants that never had considered take-away as a revenue stream, had to convert their service into take-away when lockdowns were in place being able to maintain some revenue, part of their staff, and in some cases all.

In another hand, this scenario converted itself into a huge opportunity for delivery #startups like Glovo, Uber Eats, and Bolt Eats (that was created during the pandemic)...

Most of the local shops never thought about selling #online, but the need led them to run to open Shopify stores, that quickly put in place service bundles for these small businesses.

A new revenue stream was created for these local businesses to maintain with the reopening, as well for Shopify…

Airbnb also had to create new sources of #revenue to help the hosts during the pandemic while there was a lockdown in place. They created online events connecting customers to hosts from cooking shows and classes to virtual tours…

One of the most pressing problems is the semiconductors crisis, which affects many industries from computer to car manufacturing…and originated before the pandemic with the US-China trade war…and now increased with the war in Ukraine.

Semiconductors that were once produced in the US, in the location that became known as Silicon Valley and delocalized later to China and other regions in Asia, are back to the US, to Arizona state as big investments were made to overcome the crisis, but it will take until 2024 for production to start.

Meanwhile, at Tesla, human ingenuity was able to find ways to reduce semiconductors usage…and they are beating the competition, delivering more and more cars every quarter…

Creative and agile culture is key to helping companies #pivot to come up with an alternative and new sources of revenue.

Some of the companies that became case studies didn’t have that…they do not know what is Design Thinking or Customer Discovery, but their leaders are resilient and have a mindset that allows them to lead their teams to try something new and completely different…

In my career, I have seen that some people change their mindset when they see that they have something to gain, but the most outstanding changes occurred when people saw what they had to lose…probably was the case of some of these #companies.

Now, the #War in Ukraine as the sanctions imposed on Russia caused more shortage in the semiconductors industry, because neon, krypton, xenon are supplied by Ukraine, and palladium another metal needed is produced by Russia.

#Innovation is urgent to overcome this problem! Companies will need a lot of creativity and agility, just like Tesla did, to maintain their delivery of cars, computers, mobiles, etc…

#Ukraine is also one of the biggest suppliers of cooking oils, and along with Russia the world's biggest suppliers of grains. Russia is also one of the biggest fertilizer suppliers in the world...

Russia is also one of the biggest suppliers of oil and gas to Central Europe…a big challenge for Governments and energy industries to overcome.

Agility to find local solutions to the emergent food shortage of these goods is a must as it became clear during the pandemic that delocalization of production and globalization are not as good as we thought when problems that affect global supply chains happen.

Industries need to find local solutions for food supply, and energy to avoid dependency on one country.

Remember that the above problems are also opportunities to bring alternatives to the table as well for several startups, namely those developing solutions in these spaces:

✔ Vertical Farming

✔ Urban vegetable gardens

✔ Home vegetable gardening systems for balconies and terraces

✔ Solar roofs and Home solar & winds generators

✔ Marine power generators

#Creativity, #agility, #collaboration are needed to leverage local partner #networks and #ecosystems.

Search more information about the above case studies, use the learnings and the #lean startup techniques to find #innovative and #disruptive solutions for these problems, turning them into #business opportunities.

If your industry is beeing affected by one of these problems, and you need help, contact us!