COVID-19 forced businesses to rethink multiple facets of their operations, and in some cases to recast them repeatedly, in response to the disease’s shifting geography, Whac-a-mole switches in rules and regulations, and huge changes in customer behavior and the way we work. Last year, we wrote about several of these trends, and the need for leaders to use design thinking to create the customer and employee experiences that would sustain their company through the pandemic.

Today, as vaccines are rolled out around the world (granted, at various degrees of speed and scale), people can start to imagine finding some stability. For the leaders who have been in response mode, it’s time to stop winging it and make a flight plan. Here are four actions companies can take to help improve customer experience, operations, and profitability for 2021 and beyond.

Stop improvising and start experimenting — to learn what to keep

Tue, Feb 02, 2021 – 2:02 PM

SINGAPORE will press ahead with its industry transition to the Singapore Overnight Rate Average (Sora) as the new interest rate benchmark by the end of this year, even as the discontinuation of a key global rate – the Libor – could be pushed to mid-2023.

This comes as a recent consultation by ICE Benchmark Administration proposed extending the end date for the widely-referenced USD Libor settings to June 30, 2023. It was earlier slated to cease by end-2021.

In a speech, Leong Sing Chiong, deputy managing director (markets & development) at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), said that the proposed extension of Libor discontinuation means that Swap Offer Rate (SOR) will end when Libor ends in mid-2023. SOR uses the USD Libor in its computation.

This will allow about 70 per cent of existing stock of legacy SOR cash products, or about