Over the course of last 2 years, coronavirus has led businesses to adapt to new ways of operating their businesses. No industry was left untouched from the fact that they had to resiliently upgrade their way of functioning and build on a sustainable mode of working to recover and walk ahead post pandemic. Operating a successful business meant ensuring proper use of digitization, fine tuning the day-to-day task and rethinking the way to operate the business. Given the current market scenario; the world has faced not just a severe health and humanitarian crisis but is still struggling with the aftermath with businesses challenges such as the collapsing customer demand, supply chain blockage, unemployment, growing economic crisis and uncertain regulation changes. This means that business leaders around the world have to step-back, take a deep breath and look at the bigger picture for a solid groundwork for a faster recovery.
Navigating the trends to shape the future is crucial to look ahead and establish key priorities as a north star to guide them to success. ‘Sustainability’ given the past pandemic scenario needs to be cleverly defined and systematically approached for a long-term competitive advantage. ‘Developing resilience’ within the organisation and at all process levels is a sure way to ensure that the company is walking on a proper guided roadmap. Approaching and understanding resilience can be easy to say however when it comes to enacting the same becomes a lot more difficult to not just understand but also clearly define.
Here are key points to ensure that for a SME/ MSME to sustain the volatility post pandemic!
Stepping up the digitization game
The pandemic has affected our lives in a lot more ways especially by giving it the secondary thrust for using digitized services. Not only have people adopted social distancing but have welcomed the digital transformation with open arms thereby giving different businesses an opportunity to reach out to their customers. With D2C approach becoming the new way of reaching out to customers businesses are rapidly adopting the technology to reach out and connect with customers. This competitiveness and resilience are sure to transform the way how SME’s and MSME’s function and stay afloat.
Effectively Communicating with the Team
With new age mediums of communications, it becomes very crucial for the company to incorporate transparent and effective communication. Having the team which understands the vision and passion is crucial to be able to sustain the volatile environment. Letting them know about the situation and making them an active member in taking the business forward is key and crucial to not only handle the financial challenges but also the huge attrition rate which comes due to dissatisfaction amidst the employees. Hence, it’s crucial that employees feel connected with the company and the company in turn takes everyone together to sail through the rough and uncertain patches.
Empowering the skeleton of business functioning
At the heart of any business remains the commitment of empowered employees who are not just happy but also productive. With the definition of work from a dedicated workplace changing over the course of the pandemic, the usual workplace will never look the same. Remote working is becoming the new normal with corporates experimenting and changing the way how offices function. While corporates are relooking at ways to strike the right balance to empower their employees it becomes even more crucial to understand what the taskforce has to say to incorporate it to the company’s DNA. Working from home in many ways sure has the potential to keep an employee productive and happy yet what the need of the hour is; for a good old-fashioned way of connecting with people to establish a good groundwork for business growth and success.
Strategic Financial Planning
One of the major challenges faced by businesses across industries was the lack of financial stability till the lockdown opened up and opportunity presented itself. The sudden implementation of lockdown left business gasping for financial balance. Having a strong foundation has become a must to survive and sustain the challenging and volatile environment. With economy reviving slowly and small businesses gathering the financial aid for survival, it is becoming crucial for businesses to have a proper financial planning roadmap in place for success. Not only this but quarterly financial health checks will surely help companies estimate their next way forward and evaluate their growth and optimize their working capital.
Adopting New Marketing Tools
Adopting to new digital tools are sure to help businesses adapt newer ways of reaching out to both new and existing customers. Shaping new strategies to connect with customers for engagement going beyond the traditional boundaries of time and place is the key to help businesses stay afloat. Also ensuring the combination between having a social presence along with proper credibility online can turn powerful to expand the reach amidst the customers. Embracing digital marketing tools will not only go easy on the budgeting expense but will also give out a wider outreach of the activities.
Expanding Into New Verticals
The pandemic has highlighted the role of innovating and thinking outside the box and venturing into untapped business opportunities which is the key for small and medium businesses to sustain. In this new normal scenario, many businesses are pivoting to new directions in order to grow the business. Many businesses are realising the need of adding new verticals to help sustain it for the longer run. Welcoming new verticals and expanding the business would only mean the wider scope of offering services connecting even more strongly with the customers.
As the chaos simmers down, SME’s and MSME’s must ensure to have a positive response to not only revive but also kick-start things. Adapting to emerging trends and focusing on disruption, organisations can be positioned in a much powerful manner to flourish live never before and become resilient in the due process.
