Many businesses are still coping with the ongoing effects of COVID-19 in their business. While it looks like some are coping well, brands had to adapt to many changes to ensure business continuity under the new reality. If there are changes that we can expect to stay even after the crisis, these are as follows.
The Emergence of New Entrepreneurs
Life before COVID-19 was very busy. Many aspire to start their own brand but have no time to spare in their busy schedule. Others don’t have enough drive to start their own business.
But because of the pandemic, many started their own business ventures. The increase in the unemployment rate and the emergence of business opportunities made more people start their own business ventures. Despite the number of companies that shut down during the crisis, many had the time to think and take the risk by creating their own brand.
Some managed to start a small business right at home. Others bought a business for sale, while some chose a business franchise.
Franchise opportunities gave aspiring business owners hope by providing them with the basics of starting a business. Buying a franchise to open a smartphone repair shop, for instance, allows you to tap on the mobile user’s market. With most people owning a smartphone these days, it makes sense why more are exploring business opportunities involving such electronic devices.
Local Business Collaborations
Businesses value both quality and quantity. They make sure they partner with suppliers and vendors who can offer them affordable but quality products. This usually meant transacting primarily with international suppliers.
Lockdowns, lack of supplies, and other reasons made businesses rethink their supply chain. The delay of shipments and growing prices of materials had them looking for different ways to obtain the materials they needed. For the most part, many turned to local suppliers knowing this is the best and most sustainable choice.
Local business collaborations increased, helping to stabilize the economy during the crisis. As more businesses turn to local suppliers, local businesses are given a chance to grow their brand and thrive in the middle of the situation. This helped increase brand awareness and equity among many small businesses.
We can expect the same thing to continuously happen in the future. This is since more businesses are embracing sustainable practices. By turning to local suppliers, one can outsource sustainably and reduce the carbon footprint associated with getting the supplies they need.
Digitalized Business Processes
Before, brick-and-mortar brands are doing well despite them only have physical stores. They have enough foot traffic to generate more than enough revenue to cover business costs. They do utilize online marketing but are strictly catering to in-store customers.
But when the pandemic came, consumers went online. They now do more tasks online, including their shopping. Instead, they would shop online and wait for their orders to be delivered than increase their exposure by doing in-store shopping.
This made businesses take their brand online. They embraced consumer’s need for online shopping and boosted their online marketing efforts. They had to change how they ran the business and adapted new ways to cater to online consumers.
For one, they had to adapt online selling and invested in optimized e-commerce websites. More businesses now accept digital payments. Many are using Artificial Intelligence AI-based applications to better serve online customers.
While digital adaptations changed the way businesses operate, this gave small companies the chance to grow their brand online. They were able to reach business success in online platforms. They can go beyond the limitations associated with their physical store and used modern tech-based adaptations to grow their brand online.
Remote Work Accelerated
Remote work opportunities are already available even before 2020. Many companies allow their employee to work remotely as a way of supporting better work-life balance. When the pandemic came, more companies embraced this work set up to support business operations.
They had employees switch to remote work to reduce their exposure to the virus at work. This is especially true with their talents, who are more at risk of being severely infected by the virus. With fewer employees working at the same time in the office, this helped promote health and safety standards like social distancing.
While remote work is not for everybody, more people plan on embracing remote work in the future. They like the idea of working from home and still can address their responsibilities at work and home. The flexibility remote work offers and the fact that companies save from costs and boost business productivity make more businesses reconsider this option.
But with the pandemic added into the mix, the world of entrepreneurs turned upside down. These four business adaptations only show that change is inevitable in the business world. Even after the crisis, we can only expect these to remain to dominate the world of business.
