What key lessons has the pandemic taught us on innovation? Companies that have thrived since the outbreak of covid-19 prioritized innovation, rather than simply continuing with business as usual, putting their heads down and hoping to survive, argues a recent Financial Times op-ed. Amid pandemic-fueled disruption, these businesses saw a chance to grow by creating new products and services. We’ve seen multiple examples of this in Egypt, in everything from digital payment facilitation to the explosion of fintech, from a boom in healthtech and infrastructure startups to co-working spaces diversifying their services. And while these companies went about it in their own ways, the FT argues that there are three common lessons that could be learned.

The first key lesson: When crises hit, competitive advantages shift. There’s a strong case for focusing on innovation in a crisis, because competitive advantages change quickly in response to shifting market conditions, notes McKinsey’s Innovation Through Crisis survey. The report surveyed more than 200 organizations across different sectors on their responses to the pandemic.

Innovating out of a tight spot is great — but it isn’t the norm: Of the companies interviewed by McKinsey, even ones that prioritized innovation pre-covid were generally ready to eschew it when the pandemic hit, favoring risk aversion. Only 23% of participants named innovation as a top priority in the midst of covid, compared to 55% pre-crisis.

And execs aren’t confident about getting out of their comfort zone: McKinsey found only 21% of executives interviewed felt prepared to execute new growth strategies in the 12 months following the survey, compared to 47% who felt able to execute their core business.

Forward-looking actions should be prioritized ahead of minimizing risk and shoring up the core business, McKinsey said. These include adapting the core business to meet changing customer needs, identifying and seizing new areas of potential growth, reallocating resources to areas for innovation, and building a strong foundation for post-crisis growth.

A second key lesson: Innovate pre-crisis, not just in the thick of it. Innovation works best when it’s a long-term approach, the FT argues. Companies that innovate before a crisis are more likely to have the organizational structure and talent in place to innovate during one, it adds.

Is this a case of adapt or perish? “Many companies did not innovate in response to the pandemic and have not survived as a result,” noted UPenn professor Serguei Netessine in a Financial Times op-ed last year. The businesses that survived tended to be those where management was “more resourceful in finding new sources of revenues, or reinventing their businesses,” the World Bank noted.

A third key lesson: Innovation doesn’t mean abandoning your existing model: For a business to emerge strong from a recession requires a combination of defensive and offensive moves, noted Harvard Business Review in a recent study. That often means trimming fat in some places in order to make significant investments elsewhere. The purpose isn’t to completely change or reinvent your business, but to look for new avenues of growth. Some business leaders describe this process as “pivoting,” because the businesses “kept one foot on the ground and rotated with the other to twist what they were doing,” the FT says.

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