Future Proofing
Updated: Jan 14, 2022
As the pandemic first started to evolve seriously back in 2020 the world could not be prepared for what was about to happen. A near complete shutdown of the world’s economies. The first thing most do in this situation is panic, which given the uncertainty is reasonable. However, the businesses that took the time to assess all their aspect and see how they can adapt have been the most successful at coming out the other side. Ultimately despite not knowing how long the pandemic was going to last or how the future looked, the economy was going to open up again and we have all had to prepare.
Right from the start we had important conversations with our partners across our business and worked out what we could do together to help us all survive financially and continue to exist. We set up some exciting projects and developed them so they would be ready when the world opens again, and part of our focus was on our Sri Lanka offering. We had a great opportunity to develop a booking website with numerous exciting tours covering a diversity of niches across Sri Lanka. Being that there aren’t many dedicated booking websites for Sri Lanka, we knew this would propel us ahead of our competition when Sri Lanka holidays were once again possible. In the meantime, we still had to think on our feet not knowing was this going to be a matter of weeks, months or years and so we discussed bringing the flavours of Sri Lanka to the UK enabling us a future proofing option which isn’t reliant on domestic travel at least. This is something which we were actively keen on doing before the pandemic, but the opportunities presented themselves whilst our partners had the time to and adapt and survive themselves. We created the brand Atlas Noire to launch the Sri Lanka flavours with but ready to diversify into new areas as we develop.
Before March 2020, launching the franchise was fully on the cards and ready to go, but it didn’t make sense to launch an offering in an industry currently suffering the hardest from the pandemic. So, we spent weeks sitting down assessing our franchise opportunity and adapting it ready to launch in the last quarter of 2021 ensuring that what we offer can provide the security of future proofing.
The pandemic has taught us so much about how important future proofing our business is. As unprecedented as it was for the world to shut down, a business has to be ready to adapt for any changing situation however big or small. This is what we have done, future proofed ourselves. We have created a number of dynamic avenues which all work well together but are in different market spaces, meaning if there is an issue in one area, there is another area you can sustain. But the great thing is, while both areas offer a prosperous economy, the opportunities are their to utilise all areas.
We were ready with some big launches back in March 2020 and not only did we have to put them on hold, we had to change them to make sure they were ready for 2021 and beyond. This has become our dynamic franchise offering. Incorporating all the lessons we have learnt but with the future proofing ideas which will make our franchisees extremely successful. The incredible idea to bring the flavours of Sri Lanka to the UK has been revolutionary for us and has enabled us to build this alongside our Encounter Sri Lanka brand and this is what we want to create for our franchisees, not just a massive opportunity but a business that can succeed in different climates.
