8 Practical Ways To Run Your Business Through Uncertain Times

As uncertainty continues to persist across the MENA region, business leaders are facing a challenge that goes beyond operations: how to think clearly when the environment around them is anything but stable.

To unpack this moment, Inc. Arabia turned to Chiara Spina, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at INSEAD, one of the world’s leading business schools, whose insights point to a more structured, deliberate way of navigating disruption.

According to Spina, the risk in moments like these is not just external volatility, but internal miscalibration—either reacting too quickly, or not acting at all. What she recommends is a more deliberate approach—one that prioritizes people, sharpens focus, and anchors action in the fundamentals that remain constant even as external conditions shift.

Listed below are eight practical strategies Spina outlines for business leaders seeking to navigate this period with clarity and intent. Rather than calling for wholesale transformation, her tips focus on small but meaningful shifts in how leaders allocate attention, resources, and energy in the short term:

1. Check in with every employee individually (before you do anything else).

“In a small company or startup, you cannot afford to lose your team's cognitive resources to anxiety. Don't rely on a team meeting; focus on a one-on-one conversation with each person instead. People who are worried about their jobs or their families do not do their best thinking, and right now, you need that kind of thinking. Make whatever reasonable accommodation you can to help people function well. Beyond the human dimension, there's a practical one: the best ideas for how to adapt almost always come from the people closest to your customers and your operations. Keep that creativity in the room.”

2. Let people see that you genuinely care about your team and your customers.

“Difficult times are a defining moment for any brand, and the businesses that last are the ones that show up authentically when it matters most. This doesn't require a large budget. It might just mean posting honestly on social media about what your company is going through, and how you're looking after your people. It might mean personally reaching out to your top customers not with a sales message, but simply to ask how they're doing. It might mean a founder going on a live Q&A, or a handwritten note to a loyal client. Whatever form it takes, the signal you're sending is the same: we are here, we are human, and we are in this together. Customers have long memories. The relationship you deepen during a hard moment is far more durable than anything you build during easy times.”

3. Resist the urge to either freeze or rush.

“In a crisis, founders tend to fall into one of two traps: paralysis (waiting for things to go back to normal before making any moves), or panic-driven action (launching into changes without a clear rationale). Neither works. The companies that come out stronger are the ones that carve out a third path; i.e. they stop deliberately to think before they act. Treat your business the way a researcher treats an experiment: form a clear hypothesis about where the opportunity lies, then test it cheaply and quickly before committing. Ask: ‘What do we actually know? What are we assuming? Where are our real constraints?’ A small, fast test (a new offer to a narrow segment, a conversation with ten customers, etc.) will tell you more than any amount of waiting or internal strategizing. Iterate from evidence, not instinct.”

4. Anchor your thinking in what hasn't changed, as the fundamentals of business are intact.

“A crisis disrupts many things, but not the underlying logic of what makes a business viable: creating genuine value for customers, and doing so efficiently. What is disrupted is the how and the who. Usually what is impacted are the channels through which you deliver that value, the offers that are still relevant, and the customer segments whose needs have suddenly shifted. This is actually a useful clarifying lens. Instead of asking, ‘What do we do now?’, ask, ‘Who needs what, and can we reach them?’ Strip everything back to that question, and you will find the noise reduces considerably. The tactics that follow—cutting costs, mapping capabilities, finding quick wins, etc.—all work better when they are grounded in this kind of first-principles thinking.

Chiara Spina, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at INSEAD. Image supplied.

5. Audit your expenses for a week, and cut 20 percent before you touch anything strategic.

“Most companies carry more slack than they realize. Do a line-by-line review: cancel underused subscriptions, pause software licenses you don't need, and eliminate spend on in-person events and travel that isn't happening anyway. A realistic target is 20 percent of operating costs with minimal operational impact. This also happens to be a good moment to renegotiate terms with suppliers, as the current environment affects everyone, and most vendors would rather renegotiate than lose a customer entirely.”

6. Map your capabilities before you map your opportunities, then find the fastest bridge between the two.

"List every skill, asset, and relationship your company owns today. Then ask, ‘Which customer problems could these solve that we haven't tried yet?’ A practical framework to make use of here can be found in the book Where to Play, authored by Marc Gruber and Sharon Tal. An electric scooter company in Europe did exactly this during the COVID-19 crisis. When individuals stopped riding shared scooters, they pivoted their fleet to last-mile B2B delivery for local businesses within days. You're not looking for your next big idea; you're looking for the fastest path from what you already have to revenue you don't currently have.”

7. Go for a quick win even if it doesn't transform your business.

“Not every pivot needs to be a reinvention. Sometimes a small, fast move that brings in cash flow, keeps your team busy, and keeps your customers engaged is enough to bridge the gap until conditions stabilize. Consider a restaurant that can't fill tables: rather than waiting for dine-in to return, they launch a meal kit with a short video, turning dinner into a family activity at home. It may not be highly profitable, but it preserves cash flow, utilizes existing resources, and keeps the brand alive in customers' minds. Ask yourself: ‘What's the smallest thing we could do in the next two weeks that would bring in revenue and keep our people motivated?’”

8. Use this moment to innovate how you operate.

“Research consistently shows that companies that invest in innovation during a downturn outperform their competitors in the recovery that follows. The reason is structural: going through a crisis forces organizations to make decisions faster, allocate resources more deliberately, and find solutions with less. Done repeatedly, these become habits. They get written into how the company operates, how teams think, and how leadership responds to uncertainty.  The companies that treat this period as an opportunity to build, not just to survive, are the ones the data suggests we will still be talking about in 10 years.”

Lead image via Inc.com.