Innovation for Survivability, Resilience, and Competitive Advantage During a Crisis: The Case of Cross-Country Transport Ltd in a Covid-19 Pandemic.

Abstract

Commercial road transport, both passenger and freight, has been hit hard by COVID-19 due to transport restrictions imposed to contain the pandemic and the general economic downturn. While COVID-19 has shown unfathomable challenges to organizations, the pandemic has enabled numerous organizations to unleash their ability to innovate in the middle of a crisis and cleared the way to become resilient further into the future. This research focused on the strategic innovation phenomena where innovation plays a critical role in helping organizations to be sustainable during times of crisis. The study explains this through analysis and insights from the Nigerian Road Transportation Sector, taking the case of Cross-Country Transport Ltd. The research explored the impact of the covid-19 crisis on the business operations of the case organization, the results and analysis showed that the pandemic had a significant economic impact on the company’s business operations. In addition to the adoption of a cost-cutting strategy as a measure to avoid insolvency, the company’s adherence to the lockdown and health measures as a response to the pandemic was viewed as a positive retort. Also, it was found that the case study company did not come up with any innovative strategies during the lockdown, however, post-lockdown saw a move towards online boarding instead of the traditional way of boarding. Based on the results, the company did not see an adjustment to its business model during the lockdown and post-lockdown, showing a lack of flexibility, and an innovative ecosystem within the organization. Although the 4IR digital technologies are evolving, they gave a competitive advantage to organizations that incorporated them during the lockdown. The objective was to test the preparedness strategy of the case study organization for the future adoption of these emerging technologies. The results showed that most staff had low knowledge of industry 4.0 technologies with disruption capacity in the sector of the company’s operations. Although the company is looking into developing policies that will help support its preparedness strategy towards the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies. This research also proposed a conceptual model that identifies the strategic innovation framework for crisis anticipation such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic. The model can support organizations to become resilient, competitive, and innovative during crisis response. Since the transportation industry is prone to crisis, the need to adopt a strategic response in anticipation of a crisis that impacts business organizations becomes imperative. Although there were limitations encountered during the study, recommendations for future studies were outlined.