Executing Strategic Risks Mitigation Plan Amidst VUCA Situation: A Lesson from COVID-19

Abstract

This study focuses on how higher education institutions, or HEIs, may respond to future strategic risks of an unprecedented magnitude. As the business world grapples with the impact of the pandemic on the corporate strategies, so are the HEIs. The management of strategic risks tends to be viewed as ‘managing risk strategically’ and thus, they are often overlooked despite being found to be far more consequential than other traditional risks. Therefore, incorporating tactics to manage VUCA, which refers to volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity is timely and necessary in the new norm. The findings reveal that the seven basic steps required in developing a strategic risk mitigation plan (SRMP) namely: identify the risks, determine strategic risk triggers, describe the strategic risk (and where it is likely to strike), develop strategic risk mitigation plan, discuss strategic concerns, perform risk analysis and create the strategic risk map or scorecard. The pandemic experience shows that these seven basic steps can be narrowed into four broad categories of risk identification, risk analysis, risk assessment and taking appropriate corrective actions. The study also recommends a rigorous analysis of strategic factors related to the basis of strategies amidst challenging VUCA situations such as Covid-19.