Five Essential Tools for Business During a Pandemic

Extra-ordinary times require extra-ordinary measures. Pandemic is a period of global health emergency. When governments take irregular measures to steim the spread of the disease. COVID-19 has brought with it a massive disruption in our lifestyles, business, education, recreation and many other aspects of our daily lives. 

The financial implication of the COVID-19 lockdown on the global economy according the World Health Organization (WHO) is now over $2 trillion and may get up to $4 trillion at the end of the year. That enough to create a major global recession. Business after the eased locked down has not shown any good signs, as many offices remain closed and those that are still in operation, struggle to adjust to the new realities in the emerging digital economy.

Prediction by Experts

There were early indications a couple of years before the COVID-19 pandemic, warning of a major disruption of the existing business models, when industry experts predicted that in 2020, over 85% of business transactions will no longer require face-to-face interaction. Some smart companies took heed to the warning and started developing business strategies to digitalize their operations.

The predictions by these experts were not superfluous or exaggerations, but were based concrete facts, such as emerging trends in the digital marketing industry, which includes the rapid shift by software companies to cloud enterprise solutions, demise of brick-and-mortar retail merchant outlets and an increase in online stores. The soaring number of businesses introducing ecommerce, the astronomical growth in the number of Internet users, increase in mobile penetration and the fast growing social media presence.

In addition, other strong indicators of the impending digital disruption was the rapid development of new technology solutions such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Internet-of-Things (IoTs) were some of the early pointers to the disruption.

These signs largely went unnoticed by majority of the business public. Now the pandemic has forced it on all, both business and private individuals to look into how best they can conduct business in the prevailing digital economy. Some of the measures that can help businesses operate under the pandemic includes the introduction of the following:

Five Must Have…

1. Website
2. Ecommerce Storefront
3. Cloud Computing Solutions
4. Video Conferencing Application
5. Digital Marketing Services

Website

For any business to remain in operation this period, it must have online presence. The Internet has taking prominence over physical offices or brick-and-mortar stores. More people make purchases of goods online now than it was before COVID-19. The lockdown restricts movement and the threat of spreading the disease further limits the number of businesses that are open, mostly to food and medical supplies. Most other businesses either remain shut down or operate online.

Ecommerce

It is important for a website to have commerce because it allows customers to make purchases of products and services, and then make payment through Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) without face-to-face interaction. It also provides shipment and delivery options for items purchased. Not all websites have ecommerce features.

Cloud Computing 

Offices and industries with large number of employees can no longer operate at full scale as it was before COVID-19, and many of such organizations have restricted access to their physical infrastructure and granted entry only to those considered as essential staff and the top management. Cloud computing avails routine office functionalities to management and staff such as processing, sharing, printing and storage of document on the Internet from remote locations and those working from home.

Video Conferencing

In this period of the pandemic when social distancing and crowd control is in effect, it has become necessary for businesses to have video conferencing application to enable them schedule meetings with their customers or organize training, workshops and conferences.

Digital Marketing

Promotion and marketing of products and services have move from the Streets to the cloud. Digital marketing channels are now the effective way to conduct marketing campaigns, promote a brand and sell products and services without the need for physical presence or ground staff.

Conclusion

These are trying times, and a period when companies must introduce extra-ordinary measures to keep their businesses afloat. The good news is that these measures actually help to increase efficiency, lover cost and improve profitability.

It is apparent that at times like this when there is a major disruption and the introduction of new technological solutions; which inherently, is followed by an acculturation shock, when people general start to learn and understand these new technologies. This is the time to seek expert advice, take the relevant training to improve your knowledge, to prepare you to take that bold step.