Impact Of COVID-19 On Businesses

The economy of every country is based on the business sector of that country. Due to COVID-19 world is fighting not only with health pandemics but also with the economic pandemic. COVID-19 is not only affecting Education but also has an impact on the business sector significantly.

Impact on Small businesses

COVID-19 has an enormous effect on small businesses. The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) surveyed more than 5800 small businesses and concluded that 43% of the small businesses are temporarily closed. The following are some junctures from their survey.

• First, most of the laborers are discharged from the job during the epidemic. It is due to the lockdown also called as Circuit Breaker Measures (CBM) and the owners can’t give salaries to the workers without earning.
• Second, due to lockdown also called as Circuit Breaker Measures (CBM) owners don’t know that till when this closure remains. This is related to the expected length of the crisis.
• Thirdly, many small businesses are financially broken due to the monthly expenses which they can’t pay in the pandemic.
• Fourth, several businesses took loans to come over the financial problems from the Coronavirus aid or any other assistance.

Change of Business mind

After the pandemic of COVID-19, CEOs of the companies are turning their business towards the online ecosystem. Due to COVID-19 people are changing their business strategies. CEOs are now starting to give precedence to support their employees and workers, moving towards the pathways of new growing revenues. They are changing the business faster with greater proficiency to innovate their businesses.

Due to pandemic companies are re-evaluating the customer care centers and started working on digital media to support their customers or grow their businesses.

Due to lockdown also called as Circuit Breaker Measures (CBM) and isolation, the human mind and activities are changing. And the changing behavior ultimately changes the customer’s attitude toward business. This is proved by the change in the consumer goods industry. Also, there is an expectation of an increase of 169% in eCommerce purchases during the lockdown also called as Circuit Breaker Measures (CBM). After the end of this pandemic condition, a new big challenge is waiting for the management of companies i.e. How they will manage their customer’s attitudes because this will take time to come on the normal condition after the epidemic as this is the nature of humans. The companies or firms should prepare themselves to come over the people’s needs and wants.

Organizations or companies have the opportunity due to this changing behavior to expedite themselves in the digital world by broadening their prevailing offers and also by establishing new services such as providing free and fast delivery services.

Financial Impact

On the one side companies are facing COVID-19 and working to re-balance and stability. On the other hand, they also have to quickly work on the strategies by which they can solve costs and profit problems. Due to the epidemic, many companies are confronting the plunging sales and revenue. For some companies, it becomes a matter of survival. Actions the company’s management will do shortly will decide the survival or decline of the company.

IT challenges

COVID-19 is pushing companies to quickly move towards IT. And this has become a challenge for some companies such as the chemical industry. Moving to IT is the only way to survive for these types of forms and also considered as the success factor.

Once the pandemic ends this will be very important to ascertain long term strategies and to be prepared for the future disturbance.

PS: This article is written based on the current pandemic status globally in general as at May/Jun/July-2020 and it does not represent any particular country or the Government as different countries have been adopting with different assistance, reliefs or aid packages.