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With businesses struggling to keep up during hard times like these, there’s nothing they wouldn’t try to keep their business up and running. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has said that over 53% of businesses in India who have taken the survey have marked themselves as impacted due to the COVID-19 situation. The cashflow in 80% of businesses have seen a decline making it hard for them to even survive and operate. With the right amount of planning and strategic thinking, there could actually be a way to get your business out of these unchartered waters. Here’s how:

Employees and Internal Communication

With almost everyone working from home, it’s important you communicate effectively with your internal team and leave no one out of the loop. Listen to possible solutions from anyone who’s willing to suggest and follow if you and your team thinks it’s going to benefit your business. Work on keeping every employee productive and encourage them to innovate and come up with new ideas. NASSCOM’s data shows that 85% of IT employees have been doing great ever since they made their employees work from home. The money spent on co-working spaces can be saved and used on something else that matters for the business.

Customers First

It’s always the customers who kept your business running and this is a situation where everyone is in a position of thinking twice before they make a purchase. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and let your customers know what services and products you could provide and how it would it could help them out. Remember, it is during situations like these, your customers would remember who actually paid heed to them and gave them exactly what they wanted.

Emergency Plan

We’ve already been hit by one pandemic and it has taken a toll on us. Anything can happen in the coming years which is why you should consider drafting up an emergency plan for the future. You can include things like how you would sustain, estimated timeline for recovery, employee policies, and more. Having an emergency plan would build employee confidence as they can be sure that their future is secured.

Going Digital

As companies are forced to shut down and people are locked inside their houses, screen time of mobile phone users increased by 13% according to the telecom ministry. The lockdown can shutdown brick and mortar stores but not the businesses that are online. If you’re not selling a physical product that requires to be shipped, you can shift your business online and use this time as an opportunity to grow. Make use of effective marketing and content that gets your ecommerce website to rank on search engines. Sell customized products and services so that they wouldn’t have to visit another website. Send your customers follow-up emails so that they’re intrigued to buy.

Be Flexible

During the pandemic, we’ve seen businesses quickly adapt to whatever the world needed. Fashion companies made ventilators and eCommerce websites started delivering essentials and restaurant takeaways. Situations like these make or break businesses and it’s essential to be flexible to prevent your business from collapsing. If people need something and the products you currently offer aren’t essential, you can switch to selling essentials at the moment and resume after the situation becomes better. You not only have a chance of marketing your company this way, it will also ensure your business survives and will be remembered.

It might seem like you are left with no choice but if you look closely, you will understand that it’s all in your hands whether you act and save your business from crippling or watch it fall.

Businesses that have a digital presence are not as affected as the ones that don’t. Why not start your recovery from there? InstaDukan has helped scale businesses from way before the pandemic and is currently doing so as well. You can get your own eCommerce site built and have it managed by a team of digital marketers who will help grow your online presence. All the websites we develop are secure, GST compliant and have a customer and inventory management system. You can also get detailed reports on your website’s performance and integrate payment gateways for contactless payments.