Business After COVID: 6 Areas Businesses Need To Adapt To POST-COVID
The unprecedented invasion of COVID has not only posed danger to human lives but it has single-handedly brought the entire capital machinery to a standstill. There is no industry that hasn’t been affected by the spread of the virus be it local or international business.
Experts’ take on the development of a vaccine varies from months to a few years. Until then we as people have to learn to live with this malady. But the impact of COVID will not only be on health but also on sociological behavioral patterns of people.
Today and in the foreseeable future norms of social distancing and personal health would take hold as facets of living. The population would have to adapt to healthier living standards to counteract the effects and spread of the virus.
But how will businesses prepare themselves for a post COVID environment and changing demographics?
They would have to adapt to the new environment, improvise to salvage the business assets, and survive. So they can be ready to grow as normalization starts to come back at the societal level.
Here are 6 areas you may need to start thinking about to grow your Business after COVID-19.
Digital Marketing Is Your Best Friend
As people are needed to stay in their houses the traffic on social sites has increased. They are naturally switching to digital platforms to cure boredom and even depression. The highway hoardings and poster marketing which have already taken a backseat to the digital trends are going to further slump in the wake of this disease as evident from the facts:
- Fb has reported a 50% increase in the messaging.
- Youtube and Twitch gaming show increased engagement in the month of Feb & March 2020.
- Google has also switched back to a free listing model to help businesses advertise in the crisis.
Moreover, search engine giant Google is offering 360 million as a COVID Help package to advertisers.
As a result, several companies are switching to digital platforms to promote their business in COVID times.
Shopify also reported a 45% increase in the number of people buying something from a Shopify merchant that they’d never shopped at before, for the period March 13 to April 24. 2020.
How Can You Use Social Platforms To Grow Your Business After COVID Crisis
- In this time when almost the entire planet is inside their houses, social platforms are your best friend to promote your business.
- Print advertising is also redirecting their Marketing investments to Digital Marketing as a new way to drive customers to purchase via their websites and apps.
- Small and Medium Businesses can see this as a new front to get recognized and set up their brand name among the appropriate audience.
- Start small or even Free with Google and FB.
- Setting up localized social ad campaigns and small promotions can boost your sales especially if you have a website.
- Advertise locally on Youtube through videos such as recipes, tricks, and how-to videos to garner and earn an audience.
The Next Biggest Opportunity Can Be For The E-Learning Domains Of The World.
A lot of companies such as Udemy are already offering discounts to the people on their courses. Incidentally, people are also looking or good e-education programs to improve their knowledge and skills to utilize the time inside the house,
So If you are into teaching, use the power of digital marketing to reach out to your audience.
- Sign up with the e-learning websites to promote your course or teaching.
- Advertise your courses on various platforms such as Youtube, Facebook, etc, to make them enroll in it.
- Set up video tutorials to engage them.
Even in the post COVID environment, social media will help you not only survive but grow.
Plan a proper digital marketing campaign that will not only set you up for today but also make you a reliable and trusted brand for people in the days to come.
Ecommerce Wins
“You e-commerce website and digital marketing campaign can set you up in front of the audiences to ensure and convince them that you can deliver their needs safely and on-time at the time when physical touch is taboo”
Social distancing norms, government appeals not to step out of the house except when absolutely necessary, staying away from crowded places, shutting of social gathering spaces such as malls, shopping centers, and even food marts have taken its toll on the brick and mortar companies.
The worst hit are the local and small to medium scale business which has the store fronts on the streets.
But on the other hand, e-commerce orders have seen a spike in the months following the coronavirus outbreak. The commerce orders are already up by 50% from 2019.
More People are using digital payment options to make purchases since the COVID Crisis.
A number of reasons attribute to these behaviours:
- Ecommerce never sleeps. Your physical store has 9-5 work hours but eCommerce doesn’t.
- It is available on the internet.
- People need their daily household; personal and professional stuff even in captivity of their homes. And E-commerce provides them the way.
All the reasons culminate in one fact: businesses need to set up the e-commerce website for themselves or look at the potential risk of getting driven out.
What COVID has done is forced people and not just young but old too to start using the e-commerce for getting their order and items.
Use E-commerce To Grow Your Business During & After COVID
Small and Medium Businesses need to leverage these trends and set up your e-commerce website and mark your presence online.
They need to be ready for a post-COVID demographic where customers would be already accustomed to using and trusting e-commerce as a better way to procure their essential and non-essential needs than the ways before the pandemic hit us.
COVID is the waking alarm for the Brick and Mortar shops. Starting your eCommerce website can not only help physical stores to survive now but also thrive later.
Acute Delivery Systems – Tracking & Monitoring Capabilities
Choose a method that ensures safety first, because that is the main concern of populace anywhere right now. Timely Delivery comes Next To sanitized and safe delivery.
Whether online or physical business- you need to supply the products to the customer to keep your business running. But the breakdown of standard routes and disruption of supply chains have led to difficulties in the delivery the products and services to the clients and customers around the globe – even for big companies
No Contact Delivery – Minimize human contact and touch with contactless delivery method available for Magento 2 and Odoo eCommerce store.
To make it worse, the added fear of getting contaminated with the unknown delivery personnel have led people to use the delivery systems more cautiously. This adds further challenges to resume delivery services wherever your business is situated.
How Businesses Are Adapting To ensure Delivery During The Crisis
A number of delivery setups and small scale to medium scale businesses are coming up with alternative ways to ensure the deliveries;
- A number of restaurants and small businesses are teaming up with local food networks to deliver their products, not just food eateries.
- For example, Zomato – an online marketplace for eateries and restaurants, is now bringing local vendors on its website and app to deliver not just Food but groceries to the people.
- Similarly, Subway restaurants are also experimenting with Subway groceries to keep their cogs running in the times of COVID.
Such social symbiotic merging of different systems is proving beneficial for both the parties to keep them afloat.
The marketplaces are expanding their products and local vendors are getting their products delivered safely as people trust these established marketplaces.
A number of small vendors are able to keep the business running because of these efforts.
In completely different scenarios many local businesses can tend to develop their own delivery system using delivery boy apps and e-commerce.
The delivery apps and websites have also started taking precautions and measures such as;
- sanitizing their delivery guys
- Ensuring the guys are wear gloves and masks.
- Performing regular temperature checks of their employees to ensure safe delivery.
Contactless deliveries are also in use to avoid direct contact between customer and delivery guy to reduce direct contamination.
These developments are ensuring the delivery of products. They will become crucial in the future when normalization starts to return.
One shouldn’t be surprised if the companies stick to the current format for their business after COVID is over. They need to team up to find local delivery routes to reach the customers. It will also help them become self-reliant for the future.
Work From Home Might Become A Prudent Tool After COVID
A lot of business sectors do not have a work-From-Home management system in place. What COVID did was to force these businesses to introduce a Work From Home system on an Adhoc basis to minimize contamination risk in office space.
As evidenced by the increase in the demand for remote workspace tools, businesses are turning to work from home models to keep the work going when office spaces are shut due to COvid disease.
A number of companies are also promoting their remote team tools to support this change:
- Cisco has seen a surge in demand from companies looking to implement remote work connectivity at their end.
- Facebook has introduced Messenger Rooms to rival zoom.
- Microsoft Teams Tool went down as demand surges by 40 percent during COVID.
- Google is allowing free access to its Hangouts meet tool.
The interesting point here is that these setups will remain with the businesses even after the pandemic. So it is highly possible that many of the businesses may continue with Work From Home After COVID in some expanse or other.
How Will Be Work From Home After COVID
Big companies are already aiming to go with the Remote workforce model even after the COVID crisis such as TCS trying to get 75% of their workforce to work from home by the end of 2025
It would be no surprise if other companies follow suit. The COVID crisis may not only change the work culture but also the mindset of employees.
Employers and employees both will start to realize the benefits of work from home:
- Saving cost and time of travel to and from work.
- Cost-saving of transportation.
- Delivering the same efficiency from home as from working inside the office.
- Management of office workspace.
- A better balance of work and life.
We might have a number of employees who would expect to continue working from home after COVID. Other Businesses would have to rethink and implement such systems in their business as work for Home might become commonplace in the Post-COVID environment.
It’s Time To Think About Mobile Apps And PWAs
Every big business is aware of the plethora of benefits of having a presence on mobile devices
The increase in penetration of mobile technology in the global population and inexpensive reach to the internet and its advantages is already pushing the businesses towards becoming mobile-friendly.
Google has already announced its preference to the mobile with mobile first web pages update.
But what COVID has done is cause a surge in the usage of mobile devices in the last few months as people are confined inside their houses. It is time that companies start to deliver the perfect mobile experience to their customers via mobile apps.
Alternatively, with the new player in the town – the PWAs.
These two platforms may not only keep the business functioning during the pandemic but also may set themselves as among the prime revenue drivers for the companies in the long run.
The preferences and mindset of people set the changes and your business needs to change with it.
Introducing PWA is relatively cheap, but mobile apps allow you to maximize the use of your mobile functions to harness the best of their benefits such as geofencing, local deliveries, and proximity detection, etc.
Whatever your choice is you have to provide a personalized experience to the customers so they can come to you.
It is time for business to start thinking about setting up Mobile Apps & PWAs for them. As mobile has become ubiquitous so is its usage. As more people are getting used to using them in their day-to-day lives instead of using desktops so It is time for businesses to start thinking about setting up Mobile Apps & PWAs for them. The presence on the mobile platform could be the difference between sustaining and growing your business after COVID.
Hyperlocal Is Back For Business During COVID Crisis
In the last few years, we all witnessed the rise and fall of hyperlocal systems. The curve got to its peak very quickly and then started to slum.
But with the disruption of services in the world as a result of nationwide lockdowns and containment areas for COVID spread protection…. Hyperlocal is back and businesses can sure take advantage of it.
How is the hyperlocal model becoming a life saver in the COVID crisis?
- Hyperlocal systems such as hyperlocal delivery management or hyperlocal Marketplace identifies and connects the customers to their nearest vendors.
- Increased Dependencies on the local service provider due to sudden stoppage of bigger delivery systems of companies such as amazon and Groffers or Big basket.
- Locally trusted businesses and vendors, shops are faring way better in these times because they can offer safe-sanitized and protective deliveries to their own local audience.
The Hyperlocal systems may be a stopgap idea during the COVID crisis but it can keep the SMEs in business.
- The local business owners need to find out and set up their hyperlocal establishments and systems for their customers.
- The crisis is here to stay for some time and they can leverage the opportunity to establish them as the provider for their customers.
Final Thoughts
These are not portent but trends that have been slowly adopted by companies to grow their business. The COVID crisis accelerated the pace of its implementation in the businesses. Some of these changes may get completely ensconced in the new environment as the world gears up for new challenges.
The ways to do Business after COVID will change for a lot of industries and you need to look for new ways to not only survive in these trouble times but also prepare for the future.
About Webkul
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From small customization to complete implement of e-commerce platforms at our clients end we delivery optimal results to anyof your needs.
We have self developed mobile apps for various e-commerce platforms such as Odoo, magento, Shopify and much more.
If you need to discuss the possible solution to the above-mentioned areas in your business, contact us today Get a fast-paced solution to your day-to-day problems from our expert’s team.
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