It is almost like everything we have known to be true and real, is coming crashing down, thanks to the global havoc wreaked by Covid-19. Everything, right from starting from the way we greet our friends and dress, to the way we pursue an education or conduct business, is being remodelled and restructured, to accommodate the various regulations that have been put in place to deal with the pandemic.
In the midst of it all, we still have to figure a way out to make sure that we don’t lose sight of all the progress the world has made, collectively, over the centuries. Businesses, like every other sphere of human existence, have taken a massive hit, too. None of us could predict what COVID 19 could do, but instead of looking at it in an entirely pessimistic light, we have to redesign the way we have been living our lives. Let us take a look at the way this pandemic has affected business as we have known it, and everything we can do to handle the situation.
How has COVID 19 affected the world of business?
The thing is, the pandemic has rattled not just healthcare-oriented paradigms that we have grown accustomed to, it has also struck a blow at every sphere of management and administration that impacts social life in any way. Business firms are looking at the prospect of an entire reconfiguration of the way they have been running their management, employee participation, policies, and financial activity. Politics has been realigned, with different political entities siding with different approaches to dealing with the pandemic and the regulations it entails. So firms have been dealt a hit from bureaucratic levels, and are being asked to maintain several guidelines for their safety as well as their employees’.
On the flip side, we are looking at the prospect of businesses being able to use the pandemic to their advantage, by incorporating it into their existing system and milking the best it has to offer. Take, for example, the advertising aspect of businesses. Creative handling of the advertising sector, to keep it relevant to the situation to garner maximum relatability from the customer body could be a great way to handle the crisis positively. On the other hand, smart investments in areas that now, thanks to the pandemic, are going to prove to be extremely profitable, should also be on the priority list of every business house.
Businesses have a lot of changes to foster, within the way they function, now that the pandemic has hit us all and changed the way we perceive the “normal”. But, at the same time, the new normal could be handled in a way that would benefit not the business firms, but also those they cater to. There’s always a silver lining, and focusing on them would probably be the smart thing to do!
What adjustments do we need to make?
Well, to start, several companies have started downsizing their employees. Tragic though it may seem, this seems to be what most firms are adopting as a policy. You see, most businesses have incurred heavy losses during the pandemic, and that is why their finances have faced quite the disadvantage. In such a situation, paying the same number of employees evenly, or managing the other costs as easily as previous times allowed, might not be feasible at all. That is why most companies are laying a large number of their employees in an attempt to cope with the major losses that they have suffered.
Admittedly, that is not the best way to handle the situation at all. Employees who are being laid off are having a tough time, hunting jobs in the practically non-existent job market. We feel that a little bit of deft financial management would be needed, though, to help firms out of such a situation. If the government is gracious enough to release some funds even for the private sector businesses to rebuild themselves, it would be a huge help for currently struggling businesses.
Another thing that needs to be dealt with is digitization. If companies did not have a thriving online presence before this, they are bound to have to at least try now. Now that social distancing norms ensure that employees, and customers and sellers get to interact directly as little as possible, conducting one’s business online is the greatest workaround. It does seem that, soon, businesses will have to dedicate whole teams of professionals towards managing their online presence, interactions, dealings, and transactions.
How can we handle the anticipated downswing?
Well, this could be an opportunity for businesses to rethink everything that could be going wrong with the business. While we all agree that downsizing employees are not the best way to go about handling the recession that we are all probably looking at, there are a few things that businesses have already begun to implement is an attempt to deal with it effectively.
Investing intelligently is th way to go about right now. Businesses are changing their modes of production as well as the commodities that they produce. Covid-19, and the huge shifts in priorities that have ensued, has made the consumers review and adjust their needs and wants. We can well gauge the fact that the demand and supply changes that are happening right now could be long-term. And that is why businesses have to remodel their production and supply to serve the immediate need of the hour. Investing in profitable ventures, even if it means completely shifting from the initial or prevalent goals of the business, can be instrumental in propelling, if not saying, the business.
Every business has to step up its game to combat the tricky situation that the global pandemic has put us in. That is why making huge changes in the very fabric of the business is going to be essential to ensure its survival. The ongoing crisis has affected us all in many ways that are enough to seriously consider the situation as a proper predicament, but it’s okay. There always are things we can do to make the best of what we have. Let’s focus on the bright sides, and if there are none, let’s work on creating some!
