The unfortunate COVID-19 outbreak has affected every aspect of our lives. Major economies around the world are under lockdown to prevent the spread, and every country is feeling the aftershocks of this global tragedy. Businesses providing essential goods and services are dealing with the surging demand and supply challenges while the businesses providing non-essential products & services are overhauled at the moment.
Meanwhile, entrepreneurs can analyse how the lockdown will impact their business and what needs be changed after it ends. This article will help you create a “To-do list” as we stay at home to stop Coronavirus spread.
1. Acceptance: Change is inevitable
Changes are absolutely necessary for any business to cope with the continuously evolving business environment. Dealing with the impact of lockdown is a different kind of change and you have to assume the responsibility to keep your company going. Whichever type of business you own, these are challenging times. You need to prepare yourself and your business to go through these transitions.
2. Stay Positive
The most important thing is to stay safe and to keep high morale. Every good business has certain high values and principles, stick to those values and show solidarity towards everyone fighting COVID-19. Your positive mindset will enable you to better speculate the change and make futuristic decisions.
3. Assess the impact of lockdown on your business
Entrepreneurs! You are the best people to do this assessment, you know your business well, you understand the market and business environment, you can deal with this. You can set up a cross-functional task force to aid with the information & analysis and come up with a strategy to adapt to the changes. If it gets overwhelming, simply seek help from the professional business consultants who will help you do the assessment and create a strategy accordingly. Various factors that should be considered while doing this assessment are inventory, logistics, finances, shelf-life of your products, raw materials in stock etc. are
4. Use this time to revamp your business processes
Now that you have some more time than usual, you can reconsider your business strategy to deliver maximum results with minimum wastage. You can utilise this time to revamp or optimize the business model and planning process. Well, nothing can be done physically, but you can discuss this with your partners & team to keep the plans ready.
5. Prepare for the short-term and long-term challenges
Having a contingency plan in place is always a good idea; the assessment and analysis done now will help you create a more robust business plan to deal with the visible and unforeseen challenges.
The overall effect of COVID-19 is harrowing. We stand with everyone who is fighting this disease, we hope for their speedy recovery.