By Abby Bootman

The Coronavirus pandemic has shown us that the business world is not as powerful and stable as we used to think. Many businesses, technologies, manufacturers, and industries stopped working properly instantly. It’s been only a few months but we can already see the changes this outbreak has brought to our world. 

Businesses thriving under quarantine

However, there are some business areas that thrived under such conditions. Since due to the quarantine people were staying home most of the time, it is expected that online businesses have increased their revenues and gained a new audience. This is true for delivery services, online entertainment providers, online shops, etc. For example, the Amazon company has opened thousands of job positions during the quarantine. The reason is quite clear – staying at home on quarantine, people can’t go to physical malls and buy the stuff they need.

Another vivid example is the gambling industry. Online casinos not only haven’t suffered from great losses but actually sprung over the quarantine. The research conducted in the UK has shown that virtual betting has boosted by 40%. Since the end of March when landbased casinos and gambling places were closed, a huge effort was put into developing an online industry. For example, the new security algorithms have been introduced into the field making the provably fair influence on the gaming much more noticeable.

The main ‘gaps’ the Coronavirus has shown us

Now let’s see how the Coronavirus has affected business in general and look at the main problems companies struggled with.

The lack of crisis strategies. As the situation has shown, the lion’s share of businesses of different fields did not have suitable crisis plans. This means that they had no reserve funds, emergency policies, and guides on what to do when the pandemic hits. It has led to huge losses in resources and massive employee lay-offs. The research conducted by CNBC has shown that over 7.5 mln. of small-sized enterprises will shut down if the situation continues.

Inability to move an activity to an online field. Lack of online instruments like websites, apps, and CRM systems caused organizations to shut instead of continuing their work online. Naturally, some kinds of businesses cannot be transferred to the online world, but digitalization can help those businesses too.

Gaps in legislation. We became accustomed to the fact that laws regulate every single business-related action. But in the situation with the COVID pandemic, a lot of issues in professional areas remained unclear. These include laying-off the employees due to the decrease in companies’ volumes of activity, paying taxes during quarantine, monetary help to small businesses, etc. 

5 adjustments the business owners are making after the pandemic

But where’s the problem – there’s a solution to it. This unprecedented situation has shown us the holes in international, economic, and business policies that need to be covered. Since most of the businesses are re-opening and starting to work in their usual mode they need to create the “restoring strategy” with new rules and policies. Let’s look at some modifications already made by businesses in the post-COVID-19 world.

1. Creating strategies for unexpected situations. 

Such measures should be taken in all areas of work relations – workforce, resources, internal policies, and regulations. It means building a set of rules to follow in case if the crisis situation will continue or happen again. Now, the companies are aware of their weak spots and possible issues, so they are able to create emergency plans. 

2. Regulating the relations with the personnel.

 Consumer research shows that over 60% of workers from all over the world are afraid of losing their job in case if the current outbreak repeats. In fact, a massive amount of people have lost their jobs over the last few months. It needs to change and companies should start putting employees’ interests first. This can be done by improving their employment agreements with clauses on protective measures during situations like this one. Increasing employees’ trust in their organizations will be beneficial to both businesses and the people, working in them.

3. Digitalization of businesses. 

Around 30% of workers in the US were working from home before the pandemic. This number doubled during the quarantine as companies started to realize that a huge fraction of work can be done via the computer. In the next few years, we will see the digital transformations in the fields that previously were functioning offline. For example, the healthcare structures will introduce telecommunication for regular check-ups and finances will be developing the tokenization methods of carrying out the economic activities .

4. Building online instruments for work and moving the data into cloud services. 

This crisis has shown us the lack of efficient tools for regulating employees’ work and safe places for storing sensitive information. The digital world has seen an increase in the number of security breaches due to insufficient instruments for data storage. As avoiding the future progressing of the illness and maintaining the low quantities of ill people is still the first priority, companies have to make sure that all the needed data is available for the employees to continue working from home.

5. Restructuring the business. 

All the measures taken in our new reality need to be cost-effective. For example, instead of renting huge offices and spending millions of dollars on keeping the employees in one place, companies are starting to work remotely more often. Statistics show that in 2020, around 80% of businesses in spheres like IT, digital marketing, etc. are likely to change the format of functioning to work from home. The situation has also led to the rapid development of new efficient and low-input solutions in the banking and finance fields.

To summarize, the COVID-19 outbreak has shown us the real values in our world and forced us to concentrate on things that really matter e.g. – people’s lives and the ability to continue working in crisis situations. Let’s hope that humanity will manage to analyze this experience and avoid such situations in the future or, at least, survive them with minimum losses.

About Vola:

Vola Finance can advance you up to $300 at NO INTEREST. Vola Finance can make sure your bank balance does not get too low and alert you before it does so that you don’t pay overdraft or NSF fees. Furthermore, Vola Finance breaks down your spending pattern to help you budget your upcoming expenses and find ways for you to save.

Vola supports over 6000 banks and credit unions and uses one of the nation’s largest bank connection providers to securely establish a link to your account.

Vola is transparent. There are NO HIDDEN FEES Vola operates by charging a subscription fee, there are no other charges. If the features offered by Vola are not compatible with your bank or phone, Vola Finance will refund you your subscription fee.