The economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including shelter-in-place directives and widespread business closures, have many business-to-business (B2B) companies anticipating the restart of the economy.

These companies are planning to prepare to move decisively from surviving the crisis to restarting growth. To succeed in the restart, smart business leaders should be ready to rapidly reset post-pandemic offerings to reflect new customer behaviors and desires, recognizing the likely requirement that, for example, office workers will have to integrate their remote and office working environments more seamlessly.

The pandemic’s unique nature has many B2B companies looking to survive and, having survived, return to normal. Such a mindset misses a distinctive opportunity to reset product and customer portfolios, reinvent go-to-market approaches, and take share from weaker competitors. During times like these, business leaders should be prepared to answer a question that involves vision and courage: Can the leader see the potential for the organization to emerge stronger after the pandemic-driven economic crisis? Companies with such insightful leaders are best positioned to uniquely and positively reposition themselves as soon as the economy reawakens.