How to get your business back on track after COVID-19

By Omar Abdul-Hafiz

After nearly three months of tight measures against the spread of the coronavirus disease, many countries around the world are starting to bring things back to normal at a slow and cautious pace.

In the aftermath of the global coronavirus tragedy, many businesses, big and small, are faced with an urgent need to re-think many of their long-standing plans and strategies.

Assess the damage

The first step to take right after a crisis is to look and assess the damage it has inflicted upon your business, and this damage can take many forms. To put it simply, this article will focus on two major points as far as damage assessment is concerned.

Financial damage (revenues, spending, expenses, funding)

Start by carefully studying and updating your financial statements, such as profit and loss or cash flow statements.  Then, you may want to compare them to last year’s stats to see how much your business got affected. According to the findings of this comparison, you may then need to consider reviewing your expenses and figure out how to minimize them moving forward.

Market landscape

After measuring the financial impact of the pandemic on your business, you may want to look at how it affects the market landscape in your sector locally and globally. For example, you can take a look at what market trends have emerged and what trends came to a halt.

Also, it helps a lot to study the competition in the market. Try to look at how your competitors have managed to cope with the new reality and find innovative ways to stand out.

The need to adapt

It has become clear by now that the “normal” we once knew before COVID-19 is almost gone for good. And it’s safe to say that working at the office is not going to be the same as it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. That being said, it’s important to cope with a new reality. For instance,  you may want to consider whether working remotely is suitable for your business. Aside from that, you may be interested at looking at IBM’s COVID-19 action guide which lists “7 imperatives” to prepare for the new normal.

Business processes and digital adoption

Aside from adapting your work culture, you should think carefully about what business processes you have that might need to change according to the current circumstances. After that, you can then think about automating certain business processes that have so far been carried out manually to make your workflow even safer and smoother.

Work culture

Another important aspect that you may need to think about is your company culture. With the new needs for strict hygiene and social distancing measures, a lot of our long-standing habits need to change or even disappear permanently. For example, handshaking needs to be replaced with waving or hand-on-chest greeting. Also, staff gatherings should be limited to three people or less. Of course, one cannot overlook the need to use gloves, facemasks, and hand sanitizers.

Coming back stronger

There is a saying that goes “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” And while this saying may not be true all the time, it does have a considerable deal of truth to it, nonetheless. After all, business is an adventure where there is always something new to learn. So as long as you are still able to come back from a severe loss, then you definitely still have a chance to rise again, learn from this experience and use it to come back even stronger than before.

Plan for the future

If there is one lesson to be learned from the global COVID-19 crisis, it’s that the long-standing nature of things should never be taken for granted as it can change dramatically in an instant. For that reason, it’s important to come out of this crisis with an elaborate plan for the future. So, if you have never thought of an elaborate contingency strategy for your business that is based on communication and flexibility, then now is the time to do that.

Post-coronavirus business checklist